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September 11 Coverup

Bush Junta Suppressing Last Chapter of the 911 Commission Report
30-Oct-04
September 11 Coverup

NYT: "One last chapter of the 911 commission report completed in Aug., has not yet been made public by the Justice Dept., officials say it is unlikely to be released before the election... Drawing from this part of the inquiry, the commission quietly asked the inspectors general at the DoD and Transportation to review what were broadly inaccurate accounts provided by several civil & military officials about efforts to track and chase the hijacked aircraft on 911... David Barnes, spokesman with DoT, said yesterday that if reviews found wrongdoing, the inspector general could recommend administrative penalties or ask federal prosecutors to begin a criminal investigation. 'The investigation is ongoing,' Mr. Barnes said, 'and we don't know when it will be done.'... officials had described quick response that narrowly missed intercepting some of the planes, but the investigators later determined from evidence that none of the military planes were anywhere near the airliners."

Bush Toadie Porter Goss Stonewalling Release of CIA 911 Report
28-Oct-04
September 11 Coverup

NYT: "The CIA has blocked... the distribution of a draft internal report that identifies individual officers by name in discussing whether anyone should be held accountable for intelligence failures leading up to the 911 attacks... The delays began in July, at the direction of John E. McLaughlin, then acting CIA director , and have continued since Porter J. Goss took over as the intelligence chief last month... A C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment about the status of the report. An intelligence official said that Mr. Goss had asked to review the draft himself before it was distributed further... Neither letter has been made public, but copies were obtained Tuesday by The New York Times. In both letters, the members of Congress cited as evidence of the delays identical letters sent to the intelligence committees on Aug. 31 by John Helgerson, the C.I.A. inspector general.'' Seems like SOMEONE is afraid the findings might influence the election!

The 9/11 Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket
19-Oct-04
September 11 Coverup

Robert Scheer writes: "It is shocking: The Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report on 9/11 until after the election, and this one names names. Although the report by the inspector general's office of the CIA was completed in June, it has not been made available to the congressional intelligence committees that mandated the study almost two years ago. 'It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level people were not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 is being suppressed,' an intelligence official who has read the report told me, adding that 'the report is potentially very embarrassing for the administration, because it makes it look like they weren't interested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government responsible afterward.' "

Harper's Magazine Blasts 9/11 Report
04-Oct-04
September 11 Coverup

In the cover story of the new Harper's Magazine, Benjamin DeMott writes, "It stands as a series of evasive maneuvers that infantalize the audience, transform candor into iniquity, and conceal realities that demand immediate inspection and confrontation. Because it is continuously engaged in scotching all attempts to distinguish better from worse leadership responses, the Commission can't discharge its duty to educate the audience about the habits of mind and temperament essential in those to discharge command responsibility during crises. It can't tell the truth about what was done and not done, thought and not thought, at crucial turning points... There's little mystery about why the Commission is tongue-tied. It can't call a liar a liar. The most momentous subject before the 9/11 Commission was: What did President Bush know about the Al Qaeda threat to the United States, when did he know it, and if he knew little, why so?"

Bob Graham Says Bush Covered-up Saudi Role in 9/11
08-Sep-04
September 11 Coverup

Bob Graham tells Salon, "there are several possible reasons [why Bush is covering up the Saudi role in 9/11]. One is that it did not want the public to be aware of the degree of Saudi involvement in supporting the 9/11 terrorists. Second, it was embarrassing that that support took place literally under the nose of the FBI, to the point where one of the terrorists in San Diego was living at the house of a paid FBI informant. Third, there has been a long-term special relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia, and that relationship has probably reached a new high under [W], in part because of the long and close family relationship that the Bushes have had with the Saudi royal family... Bandar is a great friend of the Bush family. Most of the things that he did are, frankly, still classified. But ... within a few hours after 9/11, Prince Bandar was able to gain access to [W] to make the case for why 140 or so Saudis should be given permission to leave the US immediately. "

CIA's 'Anonymous' (Michael Scheuer) Blast 911 Commission for Holding No One Accountable
18-Aug-04
September 11 Coverup

The CIA's Michael "Scheuer said in his letter that he found the [911] commission's final report 'disappointing in the extreme' and that it 'seems to deliberately ignore those who were clearly culpable of negligence or dereliction' for failing to deal adequately with the bin Laden threat. 'By finding no one culpable, you will allow the mindset that got America to 9/11 to endure and thrive in whatever new community structure is established.' He said human failings, not the organizational problems that have been so widely discussed in recent weeks, allowed the Sept. 11 attacks. 'Perhaps most damaging, your report will accelerate the growth of cynicism among the men and women of America's clandestine service who risk their lives every day to collect the information which would allow America to be defended - if their leaders were not such bureaucratic cowards.' "

9/11 Report Scrubs Saudi Connection
29-Jul-04
September 11 Coverup

Gerald Posner writes, "The report makes no mention, for example, of an October 2002 study by the Council of Foreign Relations that draws opposite conclusions about the role of Saudi charities and how 'Saudi officials have turned a blind eye to this problem.' The 9/11 panel also misses an opportunity to more fully explore an intelligence coup in 2002, when American agents in Bosnia retrieved computer files of the so-called Golden Chain, a group of Mr. bin Laden's early financial supporters. Reported to be among the 20 names on this list were a former government minister in Saudi Arabia, three billionaire banking tycoons and several top industrialists... Not only does the 9/11 report fail to resolve the matter of whether Abu Zubaydah - who featured prominently in the now infamous Presidential Daily Briefing of Aug. 6, 2001 - was telling the truth when he named Prince Ahmed and several other princes as his contacts, but they do not even mention the prince in the entire report."

9/11 Commission Scrubs Sibel Edmonds' Testimony
24-Jul-04
September 11 Coverup

FBI translator Sibel Edmonds testified for 3.5 hours before the 911 Commission. She writes: "It is highly curious that the report mentions nothing regarding the intentionally blocked translations by certain Middle Eastern Translators, who also breached FBI security, as confirmed by the Senate Judiciary; nothing regarding adamant resistance to investigations of certain terrorist and criminal activities; refusing to transfer them to Counterterrorism from existing counterintelligence investigations, solely based on the vague notion of protecting certain foreign relations; nothing regarding continued efforts to cover up certain highly specific information received prior to September 11, even now, years after 9/11; or nothing regarding knowingly allowing certain individuals, directly or indirectly related to terrorist activities, to leave the United States months after 9/11, without any interrogation, and per the State Department's request."

Whistleblowers McGovern and Edmonds Challenge 9/11 Commission Report
23-Jul-04
September 11 Coverup

Speaking on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman, Ray McGovern, a 27-year career analyst with the CIA, faults the report for not holding the "crazies" accountable - Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Ashcroft, and the rest of the evil neocon cabal. Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator whose whistleblowing disclosures have been suppressed by Bush, says the report protects foreign governments and businesses, notably the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

911 Commission Covers Up the Pakistan Connection
22-Jul-04
September 11 Coverup

British MP Michael Meacher writes, Omar "Sheikh is the man who, on the instructions of General Mahmoud Ahmed, the then head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), wired $100,000 before the 9/11 attacks to Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker. It is extraordinary that neither Ahmed nor Sheikh have been charged and brought to trial on this count. Why not? Ahmed, the paymaster for the hijackers, was actually in Washington on 9/11... [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,] once al-Qaida's top operational commander, personally executed Daniel Pearl ... 'but he was unlikely to be accused of the crime in an American criminal court because of the risk of divulging classified information.' Indeed, he may never be brought to trial." Is the 911 Commission protecting ISI because it is too close to the CIA?

Bush-Appointed Judge Dismisses Sibel Edmonds' Whistleblower Lawsuit Without Hearing Her Side
07-Jul-04
September 11 Coverup

"U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said he was satisfied with claims by Attorney General John Ashcroft and a senior FBI official that the civil lawsuit by Sibel Edmonds could expose intelligence-gathering methods and disrupt diplomatic relations with foreign governments. The judge said he couldn't explain further because his explanation itself would expose sensitive secrets. Edmonds, a former contract linguist for the FBI, said she will appeal the ruling. She alleged in her lawsuit that she was fired in March 2002 after she complained to FBI managers about shoddy wiretap translations and told them an interpreter with a relative at a foreign embassy might have compromised national security. Edmonds said the judge dismissed her lawsuit without hearing evidence from her lawyers, although the government's lawyers met with Walton at least twice privately. She noted that Walton, the judge, was appointed by President Bush."

911 Commission Gets Mohamed Atta's Story Wrong
29-Jun-04
September 11 Coverup

The 911 Commission staff report says: "Atta continued to coordinate the teams until the very end. On September 7, he flew from Fort Lauderdale to Baltimore, presumably to meet with the Flight 77 team in Laurel, MD. On September 9, he flew from Baltimore to Boston." But the AP reported Atta - supposedly an Islamic fundamentalist - drank Stolichnaya vodka in a Ft. Lauderdale bar for three hours on 9/7. And on 9/9, Atta returned a rental car to Warrick Rent a Car in Pompano Beach, FL. Investigative reporter Daniel Hopsicker wants to know "why are they lying to us about it? We think at least part of the answer may be in Portland, Maine. Going to Portland wasn't a spur of the moment decision. The terrorist ringleader booked his ticket from there to Boston two weeks before the attack."

911 Commission Staffers Think Cheney Ordered Shootdown Without Asking Bush
21-Jun-04
September 11 Coverup

"The question of whether Vice President Dick Cheney followed proper procedures in ordering the shoot-down of U.S. airliners on September 11 is one of many new issues raised in the remarkably detailed, chilling account laid out in dramatic presentations last week by the 9-11 commission. Newsweek has learned that some on the commission staff were, in fact, highly skeptical of the vice president's account and made their views clearer in an earlier draft of their staff report... Both Cheney and the president testified to the commission that the phone call took place. When the early draft conveying that skepticism was circulated to the administration, it provoked an angry reaction... Ultimately Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton -- both of whom have sought mightily to appear nonpartisan -- agreed to remove some of the offending language. The report 'was watered down,' groused one staffer. "

Rookie in the 9-11 Hot Seat - and Other Mysteries of the 911 Commission
19-Jun-04
September 11 Coverup

Tom Flocco reports that on 9/10/01, National Military Command Center operations director Gen. Montague Winfield asked Navy Captain Charles J. Leidig, Jr. to stand his watch at 8:30 am on Sept. 11. So when the hijacking reports came in from the FAA near 8:30, the NMCC was in the hands of a rookie. Flocco also reports, "After some discussion about certain difficulties reaching the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and compatibility issues in connections, Leidig confirmed that Cheney and the White House were connected to the phone bridges" - but the commission won't reveal the timing. The hearings "had been quiet until an individual stood up and repeatedly questioned why the Commission was not addressing the issue of 9-11 war games--specifically Operation Vigilant Guardian--wherein fighters were already in the air during the attacks, some just minutes away from New York City. The legitimate questions were ignored and the petitioner was removed by secret service and FBI agents."

Is ANYBODY Buying the 9/11 Story the White House is Dishing Up? If So, we Have a Bargain Bridge We'd love to Sell you....
18-Jun-04
September 11 Coverup

Bush had to use his cell phone on the morning of 9/11 because he had no way to reach the White House....Condi Rice is sitting in a "bunker" that appears to contain just a desk and a conventional telephone. The Air Force never got any message about scrambling any planes....There was no well-established chain of command for addressing attacks....scrambled planes headed out to sea instead of toward NYC or DC because they thought the Russians were coming. COME ON! Whatever the motivation behind this load of horse poop might be - be it the coverup of a sinister plot to allow 9/11 to happen to further Bush's goals, or a colossally top-heavy effort to try to make Bush look less incompetent by making everything around him look even worse, we aren't buying it.

9/11 Whistleblower Needs Your Support at DC Hearing on 6/14
08-Jun-04
September 11 Coverup

911 whistleblower Sibel Edmonds writes, "John Ashcroft has been relentlessly engaged in covering up my reports and investigations into my allegations. He has asserted the rarely invoked State Secret Privilege in my court proceedings, and has used it to quash a subpoena request for my deposition from attorneys representing 9/11 family members on information regarding 9/11. Ashcroft is not protecting 'national security' or 'state secrets' of the US. On the contrary, he is endangering our national security by covering up facts and information related to criminal and terrorist activities against this country and it's citizens. Ashcroft is fully aware that making this information public will bring about the question of accountability, will expose serious criminal activities, and his complicity in covering up. On Monday, June 14, 2004, at 10:00 AM, Judge Reggie Walton is expected to issue his ruling on the state secret privilege assertion by AG Ashcroft, which is intended to gag me."

9/11 - Commission or Coverup?
30-Apr-04
September 11 Coverup

Mike Hersh notes: "As the 9/11 Commission winds down into the final phases of an apparent cover-up, lingering questions remain unanswered - even unasked. He wonders if this was a real commission or just a carefully orchestrated, constrained and obstructed coverup? We may not be able to force the Bush/Cheney PNAC Administration to come clean, but we can - and must - force them out of office."

Bush-Cheney 9/11 Testimony Will Be Private, Unrecorded and NOT Under Oath!
27-Apr-04
September 11 Coverup

Who with an IQ above room temperature could believe in the honesty of Bush and Cheney's testimony? Reporters Reuters: "White House aides coached Bush and Cheney on Tuesday for their appearance before a panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks that they agreed to under pressure and only if they could appear together and behind closed doors. At the administration's request, Thursday's unprecedented questioning of a president and vice president at the White House will not be recorded and a transcript will not be made. Their testimony will not be under oath."

Republican Congressman Continues Scapegoating of Gorelick to Deflect from Bush 9/11 Failures
27-Apr-04
September 11 Coverup

"Continuing the Republican pressure on a Democratic member of the Sept. 11 commission, Rep. Lamar Smith on Monday questioned Jamie Gorelick's impartiality and criticized her for leaving law enforcement unprepared to stop terrorists... in a letter also signed by 74 other House Republicans, asked Gorelick to provide a fuller accounting of her role in shaping intelligence-sharing policies as deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration...Democrats have accused Republicans of concentrating on Gorelick in an attempt to deflect blame from the Bush administration and to erode public confidence in the commission's work. ...Smith's letter gives Gorelick one week to deliver a 'full and complete' response."

Lawyers Try to Gag FBI Worker over 9/11
26-Apr-04
September 11 Coverup

UK Independent: "Sibel Edmonds was subpoenaed by a law firm representing more than 500 family members and survivors of the attacks to testify that she had seen information proving there was considerable evidence before September 2001 that al-Qa'ida was planning to strike the US with aircraft. The lawyers made their demand after reading comments Mrs Edmonds had made to The Independent. But the US Justice Department is seeking to stop her from testifying, citing the rarely used 'state secrets privilege'. Today in a federal court in Washington, senior government lawyers will try to gag Mrs Edmonds, claiming that disclosure of her evidence 'would cause serious damage to the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.'"

If Ford Could Testify About Pardoning Nixon, Bush Can Testify About 911
21-Apr-04
September 11 Coverup

John Nichols writes, "Members of the commission and, for the most part, members of congress, have accepted [Bush's] secret-testimony arrangement. But why? Presidents have testified before investigatory committees before. Former US Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman reminds us that in 1974, amid the national firestorm that followed President Gerald Ford's pardon of former President Richard Nixon, Ford voluntarily appeared before a House subcommittee that was reviewing the pardon. 'I was able to ask the President directly whether there had been a deal with Nixon about the pardon. The public could determine by Ford's demeanor and his words whether to believe his emphatic denial of any deal,' recalls Holtzman. 'The fact that important questions could be posed directly to the President and the fact that the President was willing to face down his severest critics in public were healthy things for our country. And, not even the staunchest Republicans complained that the presidency was being demeaned.'"

NY Times Dismisses Ashcroft's Use of Private Jets as 'Conspiracy Theory'
16-Apr-04
September 11 Coverup

FAIR writes, "Contrary to the impression you would have gotten from the NY Times' item, Ashcroft when asked at the hearings did not simply deny that he had stopped flying on commercial planes. After saying that he continued using commercial airlines for *personal* travel, he acknowledged that he had stopped using such flights for official business, in response to a threat assessment... In other words, what the Times depicted as a 'conspiracy theory'-- that Ashcroft 'stopped flying on commercial aircraft before the attacks'-- is actually true, although he may not have flown exclusively on non-commercial flights. Ashcroft's claim that this remarkable decision had nothing to do with a terrorism threat is something that a skeptical reporter might want to investigate. The New York Times, however, saw it a comical anecdote-- the joke being that some people think that there are still unexplained mysteries about September 11." Write public editor Dan Okrent, public@nytimes.com

Decoding The PDB
16-Apr-04
September 11 Coverup

"Larry C. Johnson is a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He served with the [Reagan and Bush I] CIA from 1985 through 1989 and worked in the [Bush I] State Department's office of Counter Terrorism from 1989 through 1993. He also is a registered Republican who contributed financially to the Bush Campaign in 2000. He asks, Are George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice really as clueless as they are claiming to be? Bush and Rice are both on the record misstating what was in the 6 August 2001 PDB (Presidential Daily Briefing). They both insist the information was only 'historical' and 'not actionable.' They apparently are not alone in their faux ignorance. Republican partisans and even some members of the media are busy bolstering the spin that this was 'an historical memo.' Absolute nonsense!"

The 'Liberal Media' Finally Discovers the Bin Ladens Who Got Away
11-Apr-04
September 11 Coverup

At long last, a mainstream news outlet -- the Los Angeles Times -- has run a story on the flight of bin Laden family members right after the 9/11 attacks. Craig Unger, author of "House of Bush, House of Saud," attests that he has spoken to security guards on the flights and FBI agents who identified Saudi passengers boarding the flights. He also asserts that the FBI made no attempt to interview these relatives of the prime suspect in the attacks, and that the Saudis' departure from the U.S. was approved and expedited by the White House. Impeach Bush Now!

Condi Has NO Excuse For Failing to Take Anti-Hijacking Measures
08-Apr-04
September 11 Coverup

"In further questioning about the Aug. 6 memo, Mr. Kerrey said it referred to 'patterns of suspicious activity in the United States consistent with preparations for hijacking.' Ms. Rice replied that the information was checked out and steps were taken in circulars from the Federal Aviation Authority to warn of hijackings. 'But when you cannot tell people where a hijacking might occur, under what circumstances,' she said, 'I can tell you that I think that the best antidote to what happened in that regard would have been many years before: to think about what you could do, for instance, to harden cockpits' She added: 'That would have made a difference. We were not going to harden cockpits in the three months in which we had a threat spike.'" WHY NOT? Why didn't Condi tell airline pilots to keep their cockpit doors locked under all circumstances? Why didn't she deploy Air Marshals? Why didn't she have fighter jets prepared for interceptions?

Clarke Says Condi Lied About Presidential and Cabinet Meetings
08-Apr-04
September 11 Coverup

In response to Condi's testimony, Richard Clarke told Peter Jennings "[What] might have had some effect on 9/11 would have been if Dr. Rice and the president had acted personally, gotten involved, shaken the trees, gotten the Cabinet members involved when they had ample warning in June and July and August that something was about to happen... She admitted that she didn't convene the Cabinet... I asked for a meeting with the president several times beginning, in fact, before Dr. Rice even took office in the transition briefing. I said I have given this briefing to the vice president, I've given it to the secretary of state, I've given it now to you, I would like to give it to the president. And what I was told was I could brief the president on terrorism after the policy development process had been completed." In other words: LATER, MAN. Fire Condi - and Impeach Bush Now!

Karen Hughes is a Liar - Bush has Done Everything Possible to Block the 911 Commission
07-Apr-04
September 11 Coverup

Karen Hughes has been all over the airwaves insisting Bush has offered "unprecedented" cooperation with the 911 Commission. The Center for American Progress has compiled the complete record of Bush's efforts first to block, and then to undermine the commission. Hey Karen - we want YOU to testify under oath and penalty of perjury to the commission!

Bush Aides Block Clinton's Papers From 9/11 Panel
02-Apr-04
September 11 Coverup

"The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks said on Thursday that it was pressing the White House to explain why the Bush administration had blocked thousands of pages of classified foreign policy and counterterrorism documents from former President Bill Clinton's White House files from being turned over to the panel's investigators...Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said some Clinton administration documents had been withheld because they were 'duplicative or unrelated,' while others were withheld because they were 'highly sensitive' 'We are providing the commission with access to all the information they need to do their job,' ...The commission and the White House were reacting to public complaints from former aides to Mr. Clinton, who said they had been surprised to learn that three-quarters of the nearly 11,000 pages of files the former president was ready to offer the commission had been withheld by the Bush administration."

Why Are George & Dick Testifying Before the 911 Commission Together?
01-Apr-04
September 11 Coverup

Josh Marshall writes, "The first - and most generous - explanation is that this is simply another way to further dilute the Commission's ability to ask questions... Explanation number two would be that this is a fairly elementary - and, one imagines, pretty effective - way to keep the two of them from giving contradictory answers to the Commission's questions. It helps them keep their stories straight. (It's a basic part of any criminal investigation - which, of course, this isn't - to interview everyone separately, precisely so that people can't jigger their stories into consistency on the fly.) The third explanation is that the White House does not trust the president to be alone with the Commission members for any great length of time without getting himself into trouble, either by contradicting what his staff says, or getting some key point wrong, or letting some key fact slip. And Cheney's there to make sure nothing goes wrong."

Ashcroft Tries to Bribe and Silence 9-11 Translator
25-Mar-04
September 11 Coverup

FBI translator, Sibel Edmonds, was offered a substantial raise and a full time job in order to not go public that she had been asked by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to retranslate and adjust the translations of [terrorist] subject intercepts that had been received before September 11, 2001 by the FBI and CIA.

EPA Hit with Ground Zero Lawsuit
11-Mar-04
September 11 Coverup

"Residents and workers in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday, saying the agency improperly let thousands of people return to their homes and businesses after the World Trade Center collapsed. The lawsuit filed... in Manhattan accused the agency of making misleading statements about air quality after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, said the EPA left people 'unnecessarily exposed to potentially hazardous levels of asbestos and possibly other carcinogens and toxic substances.' It accused the agency and its leaders, including former EPA Administrator Christie Whitman, of 'a shockingly deliberate indifference to human health.'" The Bush White House pressured the EPA to lie to New Yorkers, thus seriously endangering their health. Bush should be impeached and removed for this HIGH CRIME!!! Either he was "in the loop", or he is totally incompetent, in hiring heinously corrupt people!

Egregious Stonewall: DeLay Will Not Permit Deadline Extension for 9/11 Commission
25-Feb-04
September 11 Coverup

"In a blow to the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives [said] that he will not bring up legislation to extend its May 27 deadline, officials said on Wednesday... Bush's chief of staff, Andrew Card, personally had appealed [with a nudge and a wink] to Speaker Dennis Hastert [on Ventriloquist Tom DeLay's lap] to reconsider, and the Illinois Republican met on Wednesday with Bush at the White House. But the speaker's spokesman, John Feehery, said Hastert told the White House and members of the House Republican conference that 'it's a bad idea to extend the commission and ... that we're not going to bring any legislation up.' The commission wants a 60-day extension... 'He thinks the report is overdue and we need to get the recommendations as soon as possible. He is also concerned it will become a political football if this thing is extended and it is released in the middle of the presidential campaign,' Feehery said."

9/11 Commission Obtained Transcripts of Woodward's Interviews with Bush & White House Officials
21-Feb-04
September 11 Coverup

"Faced with presidential resistance to turning over highly sensitive intelligence briefs [the PDB's or Presidential Daily Briefings], the commission investigating the September 11 terror attacks tried to learn the details in the documents by obtaining access to White House transcripts of interviews that senior officials gave to a prominent journalist, Newsweek has learned... Still, the last-minute deal, sources tell Newsweek, came only after intense negotiations in which members of the federal panel repeatedly brought up the Woodward interviews as evidence of the administration's hypocritical approach toward secrecy. How, commission officials demanded to know, could the White House deny a federal panel investigating the worst crime in U.S. history access to documents [PDB's] that it had already shared with a journalist?"

The 'Liberal Media' Ignored Story that Bush and Cheney Asked Daschle Not to Investigate 9/11
17-Feb-04
September 11 Coverup

Morton Mintz writes: "The following Sunday [9/26/02], the [Daschle] was Russert's guest. After playing a tape of Cheney's statement, Russert asked Daschle, 'Did the vice president call you and urge you not to investigate the events of Sept. 11?' Daschle flatly contradicted Cheney: 'Yes, he did, Tim, on Jan. 24, and then on Jan. 28 the president himself at one of our breakfast meetings repeated the request'... This was highly newsworthy - how could it not be? The next morning, however, leading national newspapers -- including the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and USA Today -- printed not a word about it. It was another big press pass to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney."

Coward Bush Won't Meet with All 9/11 Panelists
16-Feb-04
September 11 Coverup

He wishes he could just go AWOL. "The White House said Saturday that Bush plans to meet with only a limited number of representatives from the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, despite a statement issued Friday that suggested he would meet with the whole panel. The new details surprised some commission officials and members -- who believed they had secured a promise from Bush for a private meeting with all 10 members -- and could add to the tensions that have strained relations between the sides. An administration official added that the White House had not decided whether a meeting would include only the panel's chairman, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, a Republican, and vice chairman, former Rep. Lee Hamilton, a Democrat, or other members as well."

Kerrey Says White House 9/11 Papers are No Help
14-Feb-04
September 11 Coverup

The NJ Star-Ledger: "Democratic member of the national commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks said yesterday that restricted access to White House intelligence documents will make it difficult for the panel to give a full accounting of the tragedy. In comments contradicting Commission Chairman Thomas Kean, Bob Kerrey, a former senator from Nebraska, said a summary of the classified presidential daily briefing papers made available this week to the bipartisan panel is inadequate. 'What we got was a summary that had been modified substantially with many things taken out,' said Kerrey. 'I have not seen everything I need. The summary was confusing and limited, and does not inform anyone reading it what was going on in the White House from February 1998 to September 11 (2001)... With Kerrey and two other Democratic members dissenting, the commission also voted against issuing a subpoena to obtain access to the original White House documents for all 10 commissioners."

9/11 Panel Threatens to Issue Subpoena for Bush's Briefings
10-Feb-04
September 11 Coverup

"The independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks warned the White House... that it could face a politically damaging subpoena... if it refused to turn over information from the... Oval Office intelligence reports given to... Bush before 9/11. The panel's chairman, Thomas H. Kean ,... said that he was hopeful an agreement would be worked out before the commission's next meeting... other members of the commission said that without an immediate resolution, they would call for a vote on issuing a subpoena... the White House agreed last year to allow three members of the commission and the panel's Republican staff director to review portions of the daily briefings... However, the White House has refused to give permission for the four members of the delegation to share their handwritten and computerized notes with the full commission."

A New Fight Over Secret 9/11 Docs
08-Feb-04
September 11 Coverup

"The White House is facing a new battle with the federal panel investigating 9/11. To mollify the panel chair, former governor Thomas Kean, President George W. Bush last week reversed course and agreed to a two-month extension that is supposed to ensure a final 9/11 report by July. But that might not be enough. Commission sources tell Newsweek that panel members are fed up with what one calls 'maddening' restrictions by White House lawyers on their access to key documents. Unless the panel gets to see the docs, the report 'will not withstand the laugh test,' a commission official says. The panel is threatening to force a showdown soon -- by voting to subpoena the White House. Bush on Meet the Press took credit for giving the committee access to the Presidential Daily Briefings."

Faulting Bushcroft, Germany Frees a 9/11 Suspect
06-Feb-04
September 11 Coverup

NY Times reports: "Citing a refusal by the United States to allow testimony from a suspected member of Al Qaeda in its custody, a German court on Thursday acquitted a former roommate of Mohamed Atta who was accused of providing support to suicide pilots in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The court cleared Abdelghani Mzoudi, the second suspect to be tried for involvement in the attacks, of accessory to murder and membership in Al Qaeda. Mr. Mzoudi, 31, who arrived in Germany from his native Morocco in 1995 to study electrical engineering, sat quietly in a colorful ski sweater as the presiding judge, Klaus Ruehle, pronounced him a free man, if not precisely an innocent one. 'You are acquitted,' said the judge, glancing at the defendant, who was allowed to leave jail in December. 'Not because the court is convinced of your innocence, but because the evidence was not enough to convict you.'"

Bush, bin Laden, BCCI and the 9/11 Commission
03-Feb-04
September 11 Coverup

Chris Floyd writes: "Instead of stopping the drug-runners and terrorists, the [CIA] decided to join them, using BCCI's secret channels to finance 'black ops' all over the world. When a few prosecutors finally began targeting BCCI's operations in the late Eighties, President George Herbert Walker Bush boldly moved in with a federal probe directed by Justice Department investigator Robert Mueller. The U.S. Senate later found that the probe had been unaccountably 'botched'--witnesses went missing, CIA records got 'lost,' all sorts of bad luck. Lower-ranking prosecutors told of heavy pressure from on high to 'lay off.' Most of the big BCCI players went unpunished or, like Mahfouz, got off with wrist-slap fines and sanctions. Mueller, of course, wound up as head of the FBI, appointed to the post in July 2001--by George W. Bush."

White House Holding Notes Taken by 9/11 Commission
31-Jan-04
September 11 Coverup

WashPost reports: "The White House, already embroiled in a public fight over the deadline for an independent commission's investigation of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, is refusing to give the panel notes on presidential briefing papers taken by some of its own members, officials said this week. The standoff has prompted the 10-member commission to consider issuing subpoenas for the notes... Lack of access to the materials would mean that the information they contain could not be included in a final report about the attacks, several officials said."

The 9-11 Coverup Continues
19-Jan-04
September 11 Coverup

WashPost reports: "Bush and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) have decided to oppose granting more time to an independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, virtually guaranteeing that the panel will have to complete its work by the end of May, officials said last week. A growing number of commission members had concluded that the panel needs more time to prepare a thorough and credible accounting of missteps leading to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But the White House and leading Republicans have informed the panel that they oppose any delay, which raises the possibility that Sept. 11-related controversies could emerge during the heat of the presidential campaign, sources said. With time running short, the 10-member bipartisan panel has already decided to scale back the number and scope of hearings that it will hold for the public, commission members and staffers said."

Daschle Pnackles 'Commission Incredible'
22-Dec-03
September 11 Coverup

David Kubiak writes of Tom Daschle's latest appointee to the 9-11 Commission, Bob Kerrey: "Is a man who has: a) shown no personal aversion to grave cover-ups and duplicity; b) noisily promoted the militarist policies that 9/11 delivered; and c) collaborated with alleged accomplices in, and obvious beneficiaries of, the 9/11 attacks, really the best candidate we can find for a 9/11 sleuth? Who knows what Daschle was thinking when he sacrificed Cleland, ignored victim family pleas, and conjured up Kerrey (or for that matter what possessed him earlier to spike his own 9/11 probe, back the Iraq war, and cheerfully sign off on the Patriotic Act)? What we do know is Kerrey's own view of his job, which was published the same day as Kean's 'preventable' claim. 'The commission should not be a vehicle to bash President Bush, in Kerrey's view. The commission will have to do its work 'respectfully - but forcefully,' he said, so as 'not to embarrass the president.'' (NY Villager, 12/17/03)"

9-11 Coverup Machine Tries to Shift Blame to Low-Level Officials
19-Dec-03
September 11 Coverup

9-11 Commission Chair Tom Kean shocked the world on 12-17-03 when he told CBS, "This was not something that had to happen." Now the 9-11 coverup machine is in overdrive, led of course by the US government's primary propaganda outlets, AP and the NY Times. NY Times reports, "Mr. Kean said an interview that was broadcast Wednesday by CBS News was being misinterpreted as suggesting that he was calling for the departure of senior administration officials. 'We don't have the evidence to do that yet,' he said. 'We're doing the work. The report may in fact end up suggesting that people are the subject of some serious criticism.'" Of course, the commission won't get the evidence if the White House continues to refuse to deliver it unscrubbed, or to permit officials to testify under oath. Why is the Times part of the coverup, and not dedicating a team to investigate the truth about the 2700 NEW YORKERS who died on 9-11? E-mail letters@nytimes.com

Bob Kerrey's Conflicts of Interest as a 9/11 Committee Member
16-Dec-03
September 11 Coverup

"In a change of personnel that signals a further tightening of the Bush administration's reins on the supposedly independent probe into what happened on September 11, 2001, former Nebraska Senator Robert Kerrey was tapped Tuesday to sit on the 10-member panel investigating the terrorist attacks... Kerrey's own conflicts of interest are myriad. As vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Kerrey is a veteran of political cover-ups. While Kerrey was no longer a senator at the time, the committee on which he had served as the highest-ranking Democrat carried out a whitewash of the government role in 9/11, together with its House counterpart, in their toothless joint investigation of the terrorist attacks last year... Little more than a year ago, Kerrey surfaced as a leading member of an outfit known as the 'Committee for the Liberation of Iraq,' ... essentially an offshoot of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC)."

Daschle Appoints Bob (PNAC Collaborator) Kerrey to 911 Commission
09-Dec-03
September 11 Coverup

Former Senator Bob Kerrey (D-NE) is an abysmal choice to replace Max Cleland on the 9-11 Commission. Kerrey was a charter member of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which was set up by two members of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), the right-wing group behind the conquest of Iraq. By appointing Kerrey instead of Kristin Breitweiser - the choice of the 911 family members - Senator Tom Daschle has demonstrated his support for Bush's coverup of the truth about 911. To express your outrage, call 202-224-2321 or fax 202-224-2047.

Why is Bush Desperately Covering up the 8-6-01 Briefing on Al Qaeda
08-Dec-03
September 11 Coverup

Sidney Blumenthal says, "The Bush administration is trying to withhold documents from the 9/11 bipartisan commission. I believe one of the things that they do not want to be known is what happened on August 6, 2001. It was on that day that George W. Bush received his last, and one of the few, briefings on terrorism. I believe he told Richard Clarke that he didn't want to be briefed on this again, even though Clarke was panicked about the alarms he was hearing regarding potential attacks. Bush was blithe, indifferent, ultimately irresponsible. The public has a right to know what happened on August 6, what Bush did, what Condi Rice did, what all the rest of them did, and what Richard Clarke's memos and statements were. Then the public will be able to judge exactly what this presidency has done" - namely, make terrorism WORSE through indifference and ideological extremism.

Bush Cover-Up Boy Bloomberg Caves, Allows Release of 9/11 Records
04-Dec-03
September 11 Coverup

"In an abrupt reversal, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York City announced on Wednesday that he had agreed to release records of emergency 911 calls and other materials sought by the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks... nearly two weeks after the commission announced that it had issued a subpoena to New York City for records related to the attacks. The panel said that the city's refusal to turn over the information had 'significantly impeded' its investigation. Initially, Mr. Bloomberg said he intended to challenge the federal subpoena, arguing that the request was ghoulish and that complying with it would invade the privacy of the victims' families." Oh gee, 'ghoulish' -- that's the same word that Laura Bush (R-Stepford) parroted when people were raising questions about what her hubby was told in that Aug. 6, 2001 debriefing by the CIA... This is also how former RNC chair Marc Racicot protected Bush -- by feigning like he was protecting the families.

9-11 Victim Ellen Mariani's Open Letter to Bush
28-Nov-03
September 11 Coverup

"Mr. Bush, This 'open letter' is coming from my heart. I want you to know that I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat and that this is not an attempt to 'bash the Government'... It has been over two years since hundreds of our lost loved ones 'remains' have still yet to be identified and their remains placed in a landfill at Fresh Kill. We want our heroes brought back and given a public and proud resting place where we all can pay our respects and honor them. These innocent people never had a chance as they were taken from us on that sad September Day. In the court of public opinion Mr. Bush, your lies are being uncovered each day. My husband, all of the other victims and their families and our nation as a whole, has been victimized by your failed leadership prior to and after 9/11! I will prove this in a court of law!"

The 9/11 Cover-up
24-Nov-03
September 11 Coverup

David Corn writes: "It's fortunate for George W. Bush he has a mess on his hands in Iraq; otherwise, he might have to worry about a significant cover-up coming undone. As matters in Iraq -- rising American casualties, helicopter mishaps, and an abrupt Bush decision to hand off political authority to an Iraqi body to be named later -- have dominated the news, although a tussle between the independent commission investigating the 9/11 attacks and the White House did attract a short burst of media attention. It was noted on front pages that the bipartisan 9/11 commission and the Bush administration, after weeks of squabbling, had forged a deal regarding the commission's access to intelligence briefings given to Bush before September 11, 2001. But the news reports generally did not fully explain what was at stake."

9-11 Families Denounce White House 'Editing' of Key Documents
24-Nov-03
September 11 Coverup

Tom Flocco writes, "Chairman Kean, Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton, Commissioner Jamie Gorelick, and Staff Director Philip Zelikow will review Bush's sensitive PDBs. The extent of secrecy involved is exhibited by the fact that only notes are permitted, and notes taken exclusively by the four will be stored and guarded at the White House... The other seven commission members without access to Bush's sensitive documents will only be able to read a 'summary for all Commissioners and designated staff. That summary is subject to limited White House review before it is shared with the full Commission. The four representatives will have 'wide latitude' in preparing the summary and briefing the full Commission'. The 9/11 Family Steering Committee said Thursday that 'This Agreement [regarding PDB partial access] is replete with varying levels of 'editing' by the White House. It shows a lack of cooperation by the White House in facilitating this Commission's investigation."

Protest 9-11 Commission's Coverup!
15-Nov-03
September 11 Coverup

On Wednesday 11/19, the 9-11 Commission will hold a public hearing at Drew University in Madison NJ starting at 10 a.m. This meeting comes a few days after the Republican commission chair, Tom Kean, agreed to a deal with BushCheneyRove to prevent commission Democrats from having full access to the crucial CIA briefing of Bush on August 6, 2001. According to reports of that briefing, Bush was warned Al Qaeda might hijack planes in the US. Kean's deal with Bush has outraged the 9-11 families. Show your support by bringing signs to a rally outside the Baldwin Gymnasium demanding an immediate end to the 9-11 coverup!

What Are They Hiding? White House Will Be Able to Edit Reports Sent to 9-11 Commission!
14-Nov-03
September 11 Coverup

NY Times: "The commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks said on Thursday that its deal with the White House for access to highly classified Oval Office intelligence reports would let the White House edit the documents before they were released to the commission's representatives. The agreement has led to the first public split on the commission. Two Democrats on the 10-member panel say that the commission should have demanded full access to the intelligence summaries... An umbrella group of victims' families joined the criticism, saying the terms of the accord should be public... A Democrat on the panel who has criticized the accord, former Representative Timothy J. Roemer of Indiana, said in an interview that he believed that the panel had agreed to terms that would let the White House edit the reports to remove the contexts in which the intelligence was presented and to hide any 'smoking guns.'" This is unbelievable! IMPEACH BUSH NOW!

One-Third of Nearly 7,000 Ground Zero Workers Still Experiencing Health Problems
29-Oct-03
September 11 Coverup

"On Sept. 17, federal and city officials allowed thousands of people to return to their homes and workplaces in lower Manhattan, while rescue and firefighting operations continued in a sharply restricted zone around Ground Zero. By then the EPA had analyzed 57 samples of dust in lower Manhattan, and 19 - or one-third - showed asbestos levels higher than the agency's own 1% danger threshold... Today, a House of Representatives subcommittee will meet in Manhattan at Mount Sinai Medical Center to probe the federal government's handling of public health issues stemming from 9/11. At the hearing, doctors will report that one-third of nearly 7,000 Ground Zero workers enrolled in a screening program at Mount Sinai are still experiencing health problems related to their work at the site. Perhaps committee members can locate Kilbourne and Yeskey and ask what the White House knew and how it used the scientific advice it was offered the day after 9/11."

Leaked Memo: Fed Scientist Warned Against Reoccupying WTC Area
29-Oct-03
September 11 Coverup

NY Daily News: "The day after the WTC collapse, a top federal scientist warned in a strongly worded memo against the quick reoccupation of buildings in lower Manhattan because of possible dangers from asbestos and other toxic materials. 'We feel that the issues surrounding a decision to enter or reenter previously occupied premises is enormously complex,' wrote Dr. Ed Kilbourne... 'A number of environmental hazards, especially asbestos- contaminated dust, may be present in the area,' Kilbourne said... The worried tone of Kilbourne's memo was in sharp contrast to the upbeat official view the following day from then-EPA Administrator Christie Whitman. 'Monitoring and sampling...have been very reassuring about potential exposure of rescue crews and the public to environmental contaminants,' said the first EPA press release from Whitman on Sept.13. The EPA's inspector general revealed in August that the White House rewrote early agency press releases to downplay environmental hazards."

Right-wing NY Columnist Wants 9-11 Coverup
29-Oct-03
September 11 Coverup

One prominent member of the neocon extended family (led by the Kristols) is John Podhoretz, son of Commentary magazine editor Norman. Amazingly, John wrote a column attacking mild-mannered 9-11 chair Tom Kean as "extraordinarily belligerent." Why? Because he wants the TRUTH about 9-11, which means he wants all the documents unscrubbed. What does Podhoretz - who writes for a NYC newspaper, where 3000 died! - want instead? A cover-up! If you are outraged, e-mail podhoretz@nypost.com

'What Do They Have to Hide?' White House Stonewalls on 9/11 Documents
14-Oct-03
September 11 Coverup

"The leaders of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks complained again yesterday that they still have not received all the sensitive documents they need from the Bush administration to properly do their job... The panel, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, has faced delays and a number of obstacles since it began its work earlier this year, even after months of negotiations with the White House and public complaints designed to obtain cooperation. The Bush administration initially opposed creation of the commission last year, but it finally agreed after pressure from lawmakers and family members of the victims of 9/11... Stephen Push, whose wife was killed when a terrorist-hijacked airliner struck the Pentagon, said he was 'very disappointed the CIA, the White House and the Defense Department are still not producing some key documents.' 'What do they have to hide?' he asked."

9-11 Probe Continues To Ignore Bush, Cheney, and Gen. Richard Myers
13-Oct-03
September 11 Coverup

Tom Flocco writes, "Tomorrow's public hearing on Capitol Hill, held by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, will focus upon how intelligence affects the War on Terrorism. However, the ten-member commission is continuing to hear expert witness testimony mostly from former government officials rather than compelling public testimony from current high-ranking individuals in the executive branch to defend their lack of decisive action on September 11, 2001. Since the dramatic testimony and hallway media interviews held last May 22-23 involving military generals and the Transportation Department, the Commission has restrained itself from compelling Resident George W. Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers to explain their highly questionable actions on the day of the attacks" - when they did NOTHING as four planes crashed.

Who Let Saudis Flee after 9/11?
01-Oct-03
September 11 Coverup

Jeffrey J. Connaughton writes, "Why should the American people trust the Bush administration with greater police powers when it refuses to answer questions about the bin Laden family's escape? As Senator Charles Schumer of New York has said, it was too soon after 9/11 for the FBI even to know what questions to ask, much less to decide conclusively that each Saudi and bin Laden relative deserved an 'all clear,' never to be available for questions again. The American people deserve answers to these questions: Whom did the Saudis call to request government approval of the flights? Who in the government coordinated approval of the flights? Did the FBI receive any communications from the White House about the urgency of permitting these individuals to leave the country? Did any Justice Department or FBI officials express reservations or objections to the decisions? Did any Americans contact the US government to urge approval of the flights?" Who let Saudis flee after 9/11?

Hillary Clinton Blocks EPA Nominee, Seeks Answers on 9/11 Air
23-Sep-03
September 11 Coverup

Newsday: "New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton Tuesday charged that the White House orchestrated a deliberate effort to mislead New Yorkers about the city's air quality after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Clinton used a Senate hearing on the nomination of Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency to reiterate her demand that the administration again test the air quality of residences and businesses in lower Manhattan. She called on the White House to disclose the names of those who ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to soften public statements about the area's air quality in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001... 'I want answers number one and those answers are what the White House did to interfere with the expert opinion by the EPA when they changed the press releases and ordered the EPA to provide false reassurance about the quality of the air,' Clinton said in an interview. 'Those answers are owed to the people of New York.'" Right on, Hillary! Keep it up!

WHITEWASH! FBI, Run by Cover-up Artist Bobby Mueller, 'Concludes' No 9/11 Profiteering in Stock Market
23-Sep-03
September 11 Coverup

"Somewhere out there are hedge funds or individual investors who profited from the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. But they had no foreknowledge of the catastrophes, an FBI spokesman said Thursday. Spokesman Ed Cogswell said the FBI has closed its investigation of stock and option trading that took place days before the attacks... After the attacks, ...traders in the Chicago options market noticed suspicious pre-Sept. 11 spikes in volume" in United and American Airlines. Yeah... right... we buy this finding. NOT! FBI Director Robert Mueller is the cover-up artist who -- as the 'prosecutor' -- swept under the carpet BushDaddy and CIA crimes in Iran-Contra-Cocaine, Iraqgate, and BCCI. Mueller was also involved in the cover-up of the Pan Am Lockerbie bombing case. Aboard the plane were CIA whistleblowers of Iran-Contra. And don't forget that Buzzy Krongard, the number three man at the CIA, managed AB Brown Bank, with which $2.5 million of the pre-9/11 put options were placed.

Senators Oppose Revealing Hidden Details on Saudis from 9-11 Report
13-Sep-03
September 11 Coverup

"Senate Intelligence Committee leaders said on Friday they would not seek to make public a section of the report into the Sept. 11 attacks that dealt with whether there was Saudi support for the hijackers. Writing to one of the senators who had urged that the secret section of the report be declassified, Republican Chairman Pat Roberts and ranking Democrat Jay Rockefeller said counterterrorism efforts could be harmed if the information were released. Roberts, a Republican, and Rockefeller, a Democrat, said they had taken into consideration recent testimony by FBI Director Robert Mueller and Deputy Director of Central Intelligence John McLaughlin.... Sen. Bob Graham, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, has urged a Senate vote on declassifying the material. He is former chairman of the Intelligence Committee and helped spearhead the inquiry that produced the report on the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks."

Lights, Camera, Exploitation
29-Aug-03
September 11 Coverup

J. Hoberman writes: "In the end 9-11 turned out to be a made-for-TV movie, or rather, the basis for one--a shameless propaganda vehicle for our superstar resident George W. Bush... That [Timothy] Bottoms is reconfiguring his role in the Comedy Central series That's My Bush! (a gross-out sitcom canceled a month before 9-11) provides a uniquely American twist. In the aftermath of the first Iraq war, Bush the elder was brought down in part by Dana Carvey's devastating campaign of ridicule on Saturday Night Live. Drafting the clownish Bottoms effectively preempts that strategy... Bush's startled response, documented on video for all eternity and seen by millions, is restaged in the movie: As Chief of Staff Andrew Card appears beside Bush and whispers in his ear, the resident responds with visible shock and panic (the real Bush was more expressive than Bottoms). Missing from DC 9/11 is the president's next move--picking up a children's book called The Pet Goat."

White House Deceit Covered Up 9/11 Truths
29-Aug-03
September 11 Coverup

Marie Cocco writes: "The thing you have to remember, when you see in black and white the hogwash the Bush White House forced the Environmental Protection Agency to tell the people of Lower Manhattan after their neighborhood was attacked by terrorists, is that the scandal did not begin with fibbing about whether the air was safe to breathe. No. The cornerstone of the edifice of deception about the events of Sept. 11, 2001, was laid that morning aboard Air Force One. 'No warnings,' White House spokesman Ari Fleischer declared... How do you stack this up alongside the asthma cases and the chronic coughs and the nagging concern of people who don't know if cancer is in their family's future because asbestos, or some other toxin that spewed from Ground Zero, still is embedded in their homes and schools and in the office carpet? Well, we know now that the White House treated the well-being of the people who live and work in Lower Manhattan as it does everything else."

Another Lie, One Among Many
25-Aug-03
September 11 Coverup

Jimmy Breslin writes: "I did not feel well for two months. I never said anything because I was too embarrassed. A couple of thousand had died. So many others were scorched and broken and maimed. I had no right to open my mouth, I thought. Besides, from the first day, the government's Environmental Protection Agency had announced that air was remarkably clean. Work on. Breathe on. You're fine. They lied. They lied because the administration did not want people not going to work. They lied the first week and they lied the week after that and they have lied every day of the past two years to the people of this city... I sit here in New York and I don't believe one single solitary word of what the government says. Can you believe anything Bush says? Only if you're a rank sucker. Then you put that Rumsfeld on and he grimaces and tells you the first thing he thinks of, and here is Powell, who I thought would be our first black national candidate and he's as bad as the rest of them."

Four 9-11 Moms Battle Bush
21-Aug-03
September 11 Coverup

"So afraid is the Bush administration of what could be revealed by inquiries into its failures to protect Americans from terrorist attack, it is unabashedly using Kremlin tactics to muzzle members of Congress and thwart the current federal commission investigating the failures of Sept. 11. But there is at least one force that the administration cannot scare off or shut up. ... Kristen and the three other housewives who also lost their husbands in the attack on the WTC started out knowing virtually nothing about how their government worked. For the last 20 months they have clipped and Googled, rallied and lobbied, charmed and intimidated top officials all the way to the White House. In the process, they have made themselves arguably the most effective force in dancing around the obstacle course by which the administration continues to block a transparent investigation of what went wrong with the country's defenses on 9-11 and what we should be doing about it."

9/11 Commission: White House Cover-Up Exists
17-Aug-03
September 11 Coverup

Marie Cocco writes: "It's not just the Saudi secret that's being kept. The recent report of the joint congressional committee that probed intelligence failures before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon reveals what the Bush administration doesn't want Americans to know about the American government. You would not know this from media accounts about this report. They have dwelled on what the Bush administration doesn't want us to know about the Saudi government... that the resident refuses to declassify despite the pleadings of the bipartisan group of lawmakers and the Saudi government itself... The inquiry's report devotes 15 pages to describing a pattern of Bush administration denials and delaying tactics that prevented a fuller account of national failure before the attack... Worry, if you will, about those 28 pages involving the Saudi sheiks. But a deeper, darker problem is our own government's refusal to fill in the blanks about itself."

Why Did 9-11 Financier Gen. Ahmed Meet with US Intelligence Committee Chairs on 9-11?
13-Aug-03
September 11 Coverup

Michel Chossudovsky writes, "While the Washington Post scores in on the 'notoriously close' links between Gen. Ahmed and Osama bin Laden, it fails to dwell on the more important question: what were Rep. Porter Goss and Senator Bob Graham and other members of the Senate and House intelligence committees doing together with the alleged 9/11 'money-man' at breakfast on the morning of 9/11? In other words, the Washington Post report does not go one inch further in begging the real question: Was this mysterious breakfast venue a 'political lapse', an intelligence failure or something far more serious? How come the very same individuals (Goss and Graham) who had developed a personal rapport with Gen. Ahmed, had been entrusted under the joint committee inquiry 'to reveal the truth on 9-11.'"

Why is Bush Protecting 911 Funder Gen. Ahmed?
12-Aug-03
September 11 Coverup

Times of India reports that FBI's John Pistole recently told Senators investigators have 'traced the origin of the funding of 9/11 back to financial accounts in Pakistan.'... India told the US that some $100,000 had been wired to the leader of the hijackers, Mahmud Atta, by British-born terrorist Ahmad Saeed Umar Sheikh [and] the trail led back from Sheikh to the then chief of ISI, Lt Gen Mahmud Ahmed who was subsequently forced to retire by Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf... The FBI has estimated the September 11 attacks cost between $175,000 and $250,000. That money - which paid for flight training, travel and other expenses - flowed to the hijackers through associates in Germany and the UAE ... US authorities are silent about the role some Pakistanis may have played in the conspiracy. The role of Sheikh and Lt Gen Ahmed has yet to see the light of the day. Sheikh... has since been sentenced to death in Pakistan for the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl."

Is Bush Being Blackmailed by the Saudis?
06-Aug-03
September 11 Coverup

Joe Conason wants to know the REAL reason Bush won't release the 28 pages about Saudi Arabia and 911. "Commercial connections between the Saudis and the Bushes extend from limited-partner investments in George W.'s failed oil ventures more than 20 years ago to the Carlyle Group, a mighty merchant bank that currently employs Mr. Baker, former President Bush and a host of lesser family vassals. Saudi money has also figured in several of the most significant political scandals of the postwar era, notably the Iran-contra affair and the BCCI blowup. Whatever the Saudis might say about any of those matters is probably better left unsaid -- not only to protect state secrets, but also for the sake of Bush senior, the former C.I.A. director and suspected Iran-contra conspirator. The U.S. government knows many unflattering stories about the Saudi rulers. Unfortunately, they know many and perhaps worse about ours. The preference for silence and secrecy is understandably mutual."

Former CIA Agent Robert Baer Connects the 911 Dots and Finds a Map of Saudi Arabia
06-Aug-03
September 11 Coverup

Laura Rozen writes, "'Bayoumi should be in jail,' [former CIA agent Robert] Baer asserts. 'He is much more connected to September 11th than Zacarias Moussaoui.' Baer points out that Bayoumi was a Saudi government employee working in civil aviation, which falls under the Saudi defense minister. 'And so here is this guy,' he goes on, 'he's got Qaeda connections according to the FBI, he goes to meet two of the hijackers. He hooks them up with this cleric [at the Islamic Center of San Diego] and they then follow [the cleric] to Falls Church, Virginia.' Mustafa Ahmed Hawsawi, a Saudi, arranged money transfers from the Gulf to the hijackers, Baer says, and Saudis were among the investors in a company employing members of the Germany-based 9/11 cell... 'It's a classic operation where a government sets up front companies,' he says. 'How did Bassnan get on Princess Haifa's charity list? He didn't just show up and write her a letter. The Saudis check these people.'"

Bush Censors Al Qaeda Financing Suspects
06-Aug-03
September 11 Coverup

"The Treasury Department rejected a request from senators Tuesday and refused to release a classified list of Saudi individuals or organizations suspected of financing terrorist groups... The refusal to release the list marks the second time in two weeks that the Bush administration has rejected requests by senators to declassify information about Saudi ties to terrorists. Democratic and Republican senators have urged the Bush administration to release at least part of a 28-page section of the congressional report on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that deal with foreign support for the hijackers. People who have seen the section said it examines interactions between Saudi businessmen and the royal family that may have aided the hijackers... [Last week] Sen. Carl Levin D-Mich., asked whether the Treasury department's list of groups suspected of helping terror organizations was classified. When Newcomb said it was not, Levin requested the list."

Saudi Officials May Have Scrubbed Princess Faisal's Checks to Bassnan
06-Aug-03
September 11 Coverup

Princess Haifa Al-Faisal, wife of Saudi Ambassador Bandar Bin Sultan, provided $15,000 in 1998 to 911-connected Osama Bassnan and followed up with $2,000 monthly stipend checks to Bassnan's wife, Majida Ibrahim Ahmad - officially for her medical bills. The checks came from the Princess' account at Riggs Bank, where Bush's uncle Jonathan Bush is a top executive. According to PentaPost, "The Saudi Embassy called the president of Riggs [the night of 11-22-02] after learning of the FBI investigation from media inquiries prompted by a report posted on Newsweek magazine's Web site. Bank officials opened the bank so that embassy employees could spend the night going through the checks that had been issued from the princess's account." Did Riggs Bank help Saudi officials SCRUB the checks to eliminate any incriminating information? We demand an investigation!

Treasury Dept. to Refuse Senate a List of Saudi Suspects
05-Aug-03
September 11 Coverup

NY Times reports: "The Treasury Department said yesterday that it would decline to provide the Senate with a list of Saudi individuals and organizations the federal government has investigated for possibly financing Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups... Moreover, the move contradicted an assertion made on Thursday by a senior Treasury official, Richard Newcomb, who told the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in a hearing... that the list was not classified and that his agency would turn it over to the Senate within 24 hours... Arlen Specter... said he planned to subpoena the Treasury Department for the information if it was not released voluntarily to the Senate... Officials said that [Newcomb] also told Senate staff members in briefings before the hearings that the State Department had intervened on a number of occasions to ask the Treasury Department not to include certain Saudi entities on its terrorist watchlist."

What's in Bush's 28 Page Gap?
05-Aug-03
September 11 Coverup

Robert Baer spent 21 years in the CIA, including working with the Kurds to overthrow Saddam in 1995. He says, "The problem is the greater web of all this: The Saudis are not telling us the whole truth about bin Laden supporters inside Saudi Arabia. I think those 28 pages will add fuel to the fire. There'll be more questions the administration doesn't want to deal with. The administration doesn't want to present a case against certain Saudis, which would naturally lead to indictments, because the Saudis aren't going to honor those -- there'll be no extraditions to the U.S., they've said that. I think they'll point to a network of Saudis inside the kingdom that supported the hijackers at every stage, whether in Germany, Spain or San Diego... There are a lot of unanswered questions, and that's the contention in my book. Why is it that there's a Saudi involved at every turn in this? Are they all connected? Or is it just coincidental? That's just too hard to believe any longer."

Bush's 9-11 Secrets
04-Aug-03
September 11 Coverup

James Ridgeway writes: " Even though Bush has refused to make parts of the 9-11 report public, one thing is startlingly clear: The U.S. government had received repeated warnings of impending attacks--and attacks using planes directed at New York and Washington--for several years... As [John] Dean notes, how could [Condoleezza] Rice, having known all this, say that the administration had no idea 'these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon'? 'In sum, the 9-11 Report of the Congressional Inquiry indicates that the intelligence community was very aware that Bin Laden might fly an airplane into an American skyscraper,' says Dean. 'Given the fact that there had already been an attempt to bring down the twin towers of the World Trade Center with a bomb, how could Rice say what she did?' We don't know because Bush has invoked executive privilege to withhold from Congress this key briefing on August 6, 2001."

Access Denied: Here is the Important 9-11 Info Bush Would Not Let Congress Have
30-Jul-03
September 11 Coverup

John Haag writes, "I am writing to you to alert BuzzFlash readers to a subject that has received woefully little, if any, coverage in the media: The areas in which access to documents and individuals was denied, limited or delayed to the Joint Inquiry on 9-11 by the Bush administration. These areas include access to the President's Daily Briefings, access to administration officials, the presence of 'minders' ( la Saddam) during interviews, counter-terrorism budgetary data, CIA and NSA documents and other very important information. The denial of access to information in this important investigation goes far beyond the well-covered issues of censorship in the final report. In fact, it quite possibly prevented the Joint Inquiry from properly doing its job; thereby putting the United States at a greater risk of attack." Impeach Bush Now!

The 28-Page Gap: Who is Bush Protecting?
29-Jul-03
September 11 Coverup

Geov Parrish writes, "Is Bush protecting his Saudi friends -- or his father's friends? The congressional report does little to disprove this notion, and the White House isn't talking. The Bush Administration is still refusing to divulge how much the President was told before 9/11 about the nature or extent of the threat to U.S. security posed by Al-Qaeda. Conspiracists would love, on entirely circumstantial fare, to turn this into a 'the President knew' or even 'the President planned' fable. But a far more likely scenario is that information unfavorable to the Saudi government or its business interests (basically, the same people) was dismissed or kept away from the President for the same reason information casting doubt on Iraqi weapons or Al-Qaeda links was filtered out -- because the politicians at the top didn't want to hear it."

Everyone, Even Saudis, Wants the 28-Pages De-Classified -- Except Bush...Why?
29-Jul-03
September 11 Coverup

"The United States on Wednesday had a green light to again question a Saudi citizen about possible al-Qaida connections, but Saudi Arabia's foreign minister told NBC News that recent tensions between the two countries were playing into the hands of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Those tensions center on 28 pages from a congressional report on the Sept. 11 attacks that... Bush on Tuesday refused to declassify.... But three of the four leaders of the joint congressional investigation into the attacks have said that most of the censored material was safe to publish. An earlier version of the article at this URL stated: "NBC News first reported last week that the classified pages included new details on Saudi connections to the Sept. 11 hijackers, including the disclosures that money from Prince Bandar's wife went to a man who helped two of the hijackers and that a Saudi with close ties to the government co-signed a lease for the two men." Updated by MSNBC or Scrubbed?

Spinmeisters in Need of Fodder
27-Jul-03
September 11 Coverup

Antonia Zerbisias writes: "What? You think it was pure coinkidink that, on Thursday, when that blacked-out 9/11 commission report was released that (1) so were photos of the very dead Brothers Badenov; (2) the government staged a very videogenic Al Qaeda attack drill, or; (3) that Vice-President Dick Cheney finally slithered out of his nest to speechify about how no president has fought terrorism like Bush has? The Lynch coverage was predictably over the top -- and so remiss in recalling that the original Courage Under Fire rendition of her capture and rescue was as fictitious as Saddam's nuclear arsenal. Even Dan Rather outdid himself by reciting the 'almost heaven, West Virginia' words to John Denver's 'Take Me Home, Country Roads.'"

911 Report: What Did Bush Know, and Why The Hell Didn't He Stop It
25-Jul-03
September 11 Coverup

David Corn writes, "One crucial matter is missing from the report: how the White House responded to the intelligence on the Al Qaeda threat. That is because the Administration will not allow the committees to say what information reached Bush. The Administration argued that to declassify 'any description of the resident's knowledge' of intelligence reports -- even when the content of those reports have been declassified -- would be a risk to national security. It is difficult to see the danger to the nation that would come from the White House acknowledging whether Bush received any of the information... including a July 2001 report that said bin Laden was looking to pull off a 'spectacular' attack against the US or US interests designed to inflict 'mass casualties.' It added, 'Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning. They are waiting us out, looking for a vulnerability.'"

Bush Scrubs 911 Report to Protect Saudis - and His Family
25-Jul-03
September 11 Coverup

Newsday reports, "Much of the official criticism yesterday was focused on 28 blanked-out pages that criticize Saudi Arabia. Starting with the early morning talk shows, followed by news conferences and numerous e-mailed and faxed press statements, lawmakers decried the omission of the passage dealing with Saudi Arabia and called for sanctions against the kingdom. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), charged that the blank pages 'conceal evidence that implicates the Saudi regime in a terrible tragedy.' Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn), accused Saudi Arabia of having 'blood on its hands' for the terror attacks. But an intelligence source familiar with the unredacted document said that the release of much of the information would compromise major current investigations by both U.S. and Saudi authorities." They SHOULD be investigating how Bush family ties to Saudi Arabia prevented FBI 's John O'Neill from tracing Al Qaeda money back to its Saudi sources - and the Secret Saudi Flight on 9-13!

Report by Toothless Commission Claiming No One's to Blame for 9/11 Conveniently 'Leaked' as Bush Credibility Dives
22-Jul-03
September 11 Coverup

What a convenient "coincidence"! Just as questions about whether Bush engineered the war on Iraq were beginning to turn into questions of whether he engineered the entire war on terror, a "preview" of the soon-to-be released report on 9/11 has been "leaked" to the biggest panderer of mockinbgird news in the mainstream media: AP. The report is the end product of a commission that was blocked at every turn by Bush - a commission as toothless as Mammy Yokum. It of course finds no evidence of a "smoking gun" but instead claims 9/11 was "just one of those things" -an unavoidable disaster due to a chain of "errors" diffused through the chain of command. Strange - that's the same story Bush and Blair are using in their current crises, too. Same story...and getting older by the minute!

Bush Protects Saudis in 911 Report
20-Jul-03
September 11 Coverup

"The long-delayed 900-page report contains potentially explosive new evidence suggesting that Omar al-Bayoumi, a key associate of two of the hijackers, may have been a Saudi-government agent, sources tell NEWSWEEK. The report documents extensive ties between al-Bayoumi and the hijackers. But the FBI never kept tabs on al-Bayoumi-despite receiving prior information he was a secret Saudi agent. In January 2000, al-Bayoumi had a meeting at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles-and then went directly to a restaurant where he met future hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, whom he took back with him to San Diego... Questions about the Saudi role arose repeatedly during last year's intelligence-committees inquiry. But the Bush administration has refused to declassify many key passages of the committees' findings. A 28-page section of the report dealing with the Saudis and other foreign governments will be deleted. 'They are protecting a foreign government,' charged Sen. Bob Graham."

Iran-Contra Whitewasher Lee Hamilton is Now Steering the 9/11 Commission
11-Jul-03
September 11 Coverup

Bartcop.com writes: "Lee Hamilton un-broke Iran-Contra, covering up the Bush crime spree and giving the head of the BFEE ['Bush Family Evil Empire'] a big, giant pass for everything he did. and now he's steering the 9-11 investigation? Why did the Democrats cave in on this one, too? If you and I know Hamilton is a Bush bootlicker, why didn't the Democrats? Why do they keep caving in to everything that Bush proposes? Why don't the Democrats want the truth of 9-11 to come out?"

'Bush Administration...is Now Doing Its Best to Bury the National Commission' on 9/11
09-Jul-03
September 11 Coverup

An NY Times Editorial: "The Bush administration, long allergic to the idea of investigating the government's failure to prevent the Sept. 11 terror attacks, is now doing its best to bury the national commission that was created to review Washington's conduct. That was made plain yesterday in a muted way by Thomas Kean, the former New Jersey governor, and Lee Hamilton, the former congressman, who are directing the inquiry. When these seasoned, mild-mannered men start complaining that the administration is trying to intimidate the commission, the country had better take notice... Acting more like the Soviet Kremlin than the American government, the administration has insisted that monitors from various agencies attend debriefings of key officials by investigators. Mr. Kean is quite correct in objecting to this as a thinly veiled attempt at intimidation. Meanwhile, the clock is running for the commission to complete a full report to the nation by next May."

9/11 Panel Complains Some Agencies are Slowing Inquiry
08-Jul-03
September 11 Coverup

"The leaders of a federal commission investigating the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, complained today that they had encountered 'particularly serious' problems in obtaining materials from the Defense Department and lesser delays from some other government departments that could threaten the panel's work... Gov. Thomas H. Kean of New Jersey, also said that the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security were moving too slowly to permit the panel to conclude its report by May 2004, as required by its Congressional mandate. Mr. Kean said that commission members were unhappy that some agencies -- they cited the Justice Department in particular -- had insisted on having monitors present at all commission interviews with their respective officials. That can foster a chilling sense of 'intimidation' among witnesses, Mr. Kean said. The chairman also said that the Justice Department had failed to provide needed cooperation regarding the prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui."

Kristin Breitweiser Wants to Go 'Head to Head' with Dick Cheney over 9-11 Coverup
19-Jun-03
September 11 Coverup

Eric Boehlert writes, "There's a growing sense among some 9/11 advocates that the news media have let them -- and the nation -- down. 'I'm very disappointed in the press,' says [9-11 victim's spouse Kristin] Breitweiser. 'I think it's disgusting the independent commission is doing the most important work for this nation and it's not even reported in the New York Times or on the nightly news. I've been scheduled to go on 'Meet the Press' and 'Hardball' so many times and I'm always canceled. Frankly I'd like nothing better than to go head to head with Dick Cheney on 'Meet the Press.' Because somebody needs to ask the questions and I don't understand why nobody is.' Among frustrated family members of Sept. 11 victims, there's a feeling they're losing the battle of time in their struggle to get answers from the Bush administration. 'There's a very, very small window to effect changes,' says one 9/11 widower, Bill Harvey. 'And unfortunately, that window is closing.'" You go, Kristin!

Bush's 9/11 Cover-up
18-Jun-03
September 11 Coverup

Salon.com reports: "For family members of those who died on Sept. 11, last week brought a rare chance to meet face-to-face with a man who's become a symbol of their dissatisfaction -- FBI director Robert Mueller. The bureau had quietly invited several dozen family members to Washington to hear a presentation on the war on terrorism... While the administration of George W. Bush is aggressively positioning itself as the world leader in the war on terrorism, some families of the Sept. 11 victims say that the facts increasingly contradict that script. The White House long opposed the formation of a blue ribbon Sept. 11 commission, some say, and even now that panel is underfunded and struggling to build momentum. And, they say, the administration is suppressing a 900-page congressional study, possibly out of fear that the findings will be politically damaging to Bush."

Bush Trying To Hide 9/11 Information, Bob Graham Says
03-Jun-03
September 11 Coverup

Peter Wallstein writes for the Miami Herald: "U.S. Sen. Bob Graham... accused the Bush administration Sunday of overzealous editing of the public version of a report on the causes of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Citing proposed changes in several sections of the report -- which was based on the congressional investigation he helped oversee as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee -- the Florida senator said on CNN's Late Edition that the administration was trying to hide information submitted in open session and, in some cases, reported in the media. 'That's not being done for any legitimate national security reasons,' Graham told CNN. 'It's being done because they don't want the American people to see a coherent narrative of what happened'... Graham on Sunday welcomed the call from other Senate leaders for a congressional inquiry into the intelligence that led to the widespread belief that Hussein's regime had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction."

Bush's 9-11 Cover-up Centers on Presidential Briefings and Saudi Connections
27-May-03
September 11 Coverup

Newsweek reports, "Why is the Bush administration blocking the release of an 800-page congressional report about 9-11?.. Among the portions of the report the administration refuses to declassify, sources say, are chapters dealing with two politically and diplomatically sensitive issues: the details of daily intelligence briefings given to Bush in the summer of 2001 and evidence pointing to Saudi government ties to Al Qaeda... [A] review committee overseen by CIA Director George Tenet has refused to declassify anything that even refers to the existence of PDBs [President's Daily Briefs]- though they are described on the CIA's own Web site (www.CIA.gov)... The other hot-button issue is the Saudis, sources say. The report discusses evidence that individuals with Saudi government connections may have provided the hijackers aid. One of them is Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi student who helped two hijackers get apartments in San Diego."

The Bush Administration Covered Up the Terrorist Threat -- BEFORE 9/11
26-May-03
September 11 Coverup

Bryan Keogh of the Chicago Tribune writes: "The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were made possible by gaping holes in airline security, government cover-ups that prevented problems from being fixed and a failure to respond to a growing threat that terrorists might use airliners as weapons, witnesses told an independent commission this week. 'The notion that these hijackings and terrorism were an unforeseen and unforeseeable risk is an airline and FAA public-relations management myth,' said Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general at the Department of Transportation, in testimony Friday... A security inspector with the Transportation Security Administration told the commission Thursday that undercover tests he had conducted revealed persistent, egregious weaknesses in airport security systems. 'Although we breached security with ridiculous ease up to 90 percent of the time, the FAA suppressed these warnings,' said" an FAA whistleblower.

Bush Answers on 9/11 Overdue
24-May-03
September 11 Coverup

Andrew Greeley writes: "Patently, President [sic] Bush is not going to assume responsibility for the World Trade Center catastrophe... Bush continues to stonewall attempts to set up an independent investigation of what went wrong, and continues to sit on the 900-page report prepared by a bipartisan congressional committee. The White House excuse for this cover-up is that discussion about what went wrong in the months before the destruction of the World Trade Center would interfere with the 'war on terrorism.' There are several things wrong with this argument... if there is not something to hide, why not release the report?... the 'war on terrorism' is a metaphor (just like the 'war on drugs'...) ... for a struggle against international criminals. It is a useful political label for a president [sic] who wants to be re-[s]elected as a wartime leader and to land on an aircraft carrier dressed in flight gear (even though he was in effect AWOL for at least a year during the Vietnam War)."

CIA Officials Who Failed to Put Hijackers on Watch List Not Named
15-May-03
September 11 Coverup

"Seven months after telling Congress he would do so, George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, has yet to provide the names of agency officials responsible for one of the most glaring intelligence mistakes leading up to the attacks of Sept. 11, according to Congressional and agency officials. Soon after the attacks, the mistake emerged, showing that the Central Intelligence Agency had waited 20 months before placing on a federal watch list two suspected terrorists who wound up as hijackers. Had the information about the two hijackers been promptly relayed to other agencies, the government might have been able to disrupt, limit or possibly even prevent the terrorist attacks, intelligence officials and Congressional investigators said. The agency knew that the two, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhazmi, had attended a meeting of Al Qaeda in Malaysia in early 2000."

Bob Graham Charges Bush Regime with Cover-up of Pre-9/11 Failure
13-May-03
September 11 Coverup

"Sen. Bob Graham accused the Bush administration Sunday of covering up its failure to possibly prevent the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks by refusing to release the findings of a Graham-led congressional investigation last year. Graham said on CBS' Face the Nation program that the administration is not withholding the information to protect national security. 'In fact, a great deal of the information which they want to keep classified has already been released, such as in testimony by CIA and FBI officials in public hearings,' Graham said. 'I think what they are shooting at is to cover up the failures that occurred before September the 11th.' Releasing the report, he said, could help law enforcement prevent another attack... Graham said, 'I think what the administration is concerned about is that we have connected the dots. They don't want the American people in one document to know and be able to assess and hold accountable the people who were involved in the lead up to September 11.'"

White House Refuses to Release Sept. 11 Info
08-May-03
September 11 Coverup

Frank Davies writes: "The Bush administration and the nation's intelligence agencies are blocking the release of sensitive information about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, delaying publication of a 900-page congressional report on how the terrorist assault happened. Intelligence officials insist the information must be kept secret for national security reasons. But some of the information is already broadly available on the Internet or has been revealed in interim reports on the investigation, leading to charges that the administration is simply trying to avoid enshrining embarrassing details in the report. Disputed information includes a well publicized warning from an FBI agent that al-Qaida supporters might be training in U.S. flight schools and the names of the resident and his national security adviser as people who may have received warnings that a terrorist attack was possible before Sept. 11, one official said."

Bush White House Tries to Keep 911 Report Secret
01-May-03
September 11 Coverup

"Even as White House political aides plot a 2004 campaign plan designed to capitalize on the emotions and issues raised by the September 11 terror attacks, administration officials are waging a behind-the-scenes battle to restrict public disclosure of key events relating to the attacks. At the center of the dispute is a more-than-800-page secret report prepared by a joint congressional inquiry detailing the intelligence and law-enforcement failures that preceded the attacks -- including provocative, if unheeded warnings, given President [sic] Bush and his top advisers during the summer of 2001. The report was completed last December; only a bare-bones list of 'findings' with virtually no details was made public... In [Bob] Graham's view, the Bush administration isn't protecting legitimate issues of national security but information that could be a political 'embarrassment,' the aide said. Graham... recently told Newsweek: 'There has been a cover-up of this.'"

Bushcroft Justice Dept. Seeks Sept. 11 Transcripts -- What Will Be Censored in the Name of 'Executive Privilege'?
26-Apr-03
September 11 Coverup

NY Times reports: "The Justice Department has asked to review the transcripts of secret Congressional hearings on the Sept. 11 terror attacks before they are handed over to a new federal commission that is also investigating the attacks, panel officials said today. The commission's executive director, Philip Zelikow, said the Justice Department had expressed concern that material in the transcripts might 'raise an issue of presidential executive privilege' and needed to be reviewed before it was shared among commission members."

September 11 Commission: The Stonewall Continues
25-Apr-03
September 11 Coverup

Tim Roemer, a member of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, has been refused permission to review transcripts of a Congressional inquiry into the attacks -- even though, as a member of Congress, he served on the joint committee and had read the material before. The commission's executive director, Philip Zelikow, has said that the commissioners have the authority to view the documents and that he will fight any attempt by Congress or the White House to keep documents secret. Since the commission expires in May 2004, every delay makes it less likely that it will be able to achieve its purpose. And every roadblock thrown in the commission's way -- like this one -- makes it look more as if somebody doesn't want the commission or the American people to find out exactly what happened.

Senators Protest 'Performance Award' to FBI Lawyer Who Obstructed Anti-Terror Work
10-Jan-03
September 11 Coverup

Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Richard Shelby (R-AL) are demanding an explanation for why Marion "Spike" Bowman received a Presidential Rank Award, which includes a cash bonus, when he was responsible for denying the request for a search warrant against Zacarias Moussaoui. FBI Director Robert Mueller had recommended to the White House that Bowman receive the award. Why does Mr. Mueller believe that obstructing an investigation that might have prevented the September 11 attacks should be rewarded?

By Choosing Tom Kean, Bush Nominates Himself to Chair 9/11 Investigation
23-Dec-02
September 11 Coverup

William Rivers Pitt writes, "Now, we have Thomas Kane, a man with no training or background in any of the areas necessary to the investigation, a man who does not appear capable of taking on the intelligence community and the administration, much less the five other Republicans who will have veto power over the issuance of subpoenas. It is difficult to imagine Thomas Kean pushing hard for answers to questions like these: * Why did George W. Bush order the dismantling of the Bin Laden Task Force prior to 9/11? * Was the Bush administration involved in negotiations with the Taliban prior to 9/11 regarding a pipeline project to be undertaken in Afghanistan by Unocal Petroleum * Why were fighter interceptors not scrambled after it became clear that commercial aircraft had been hijacked? * Who made the decision to stop FBI Deputy Director John O'Neill from investigation al Qaeda financial accounts? * What was Saudi Arabia's involvement with the hijackers and the 9/11 plot?" Plus lots more!

While Time Honors Whistleblowers, Bush Honors the Criminals who 'Spiked' the Truth!
23-Dec-02
September 11 Coverup

Minneapolis Star Tribune "reported that at a quiet little ceremony earlier this month, Marion (Spike) Bowman was one of nine people in the bureau to receive an award for 'exceptional performance.' The award carries with it a cash bonus of 20-35% of the recipient's salary and a framed certificate signed by BUSH. What does this have to do with Rowley? Bowman heads the FBI's National Security Law Unit. That's the unit that blocked Minneapolis agents from pursuing their suspicions about Moussaoui. Bowman received the big pats on the back (and cash) a few days before the Intelligence committees turned in their reports of pre-Sept. 11 intelligence failures [saying] Minneapolis agents deserved honors for their work and that those who performed poorly should be disciplined. The National Security Law Unit was singled out by Sen. Shelby, R-Ala., for inept performance. There were no FBI honors for the Minneapolis office. There was a big honor for the lead antagonist of the Minneapolis office."

Bush Nominates Thomas Kean to Chair 9/11 Investigation
19-Dec-02
September 11 Coverup

William Rivers Pitt writes: "George W. Bush has tapped Thomas Kean to chair the independent investigation into the attacks of September 11th. This nomination comes in the wake of the choice of Henry Kissinger for that post, and his sudden departure. Kissinger, considered a master of secrets and a war criminal to boot, was an odd pick for the post to say the least. He resigned rather than give up the list of clients he has served since leaving public life...[Kean] is the former chairman of the National Environmental Education and Training Foundation; he is a board member of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the World Wildlife Fund, the National Center for Learning Disabilities, and the National Endowment for Democracy... By nominating Thomas Kean for this duty, George W. Bush has basically nominated himself. Kean holds every appearance of being a good and decent man. One hopes the puppet strings will not pain him too much."

Thomas Kean is on the Board of the National Endowment for Democracy, an Outfit from the Iran-Contra Network that Conducts CIA-Type Operations
19-Dec-02
September 11 Coverup

"The organization's Board of Directors is a collection of high- powered inside-the-beltway longtime foreign policy 'experts.' In February, six new members were elected to the board: Frank Carlucci, current chairperson of the Carlyle Group, a banking firm [11th largest Defense contractor, with Bush Sr as an advisor], and former Secretary of Defense and National Security Advisor in the Reagan administration; General Wesley K. Clark (U.S. Army Ret.), currently associated with the Stephens Group, a venture capital outfit...An active partner of the Reagan administration during the 1980s, the NED worked to destabilize and crush the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. As might be expected, the organization got caught up in the maelstrom surrounding the Iran- Contra affair. According to Blum, the NED funded 'key components of [Col.] Oliver North's shadowy 'Project Democracy' network, which privatized U.S. foreign policy, waged war, ran arms and drugs and engaged in other equally charming activities."

New Book Examines Possible White House Role in 9/11 Attacks
06-Dec-02
September 11 Coverup

In "The War on Freedom: How and Why America Was Attacked", Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed of the Institute for Policy Research and Development in the UK examines the big picture created by information from "respected sources including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Wall Street Journal" about what happened before, during, and after September 11, 2001. He reports on high-level orders preventing investigations of suspected terrorists before September 11; warnings that various well-known people received that caused them to cancel travel plans; the Air Force's deviation from standard procedures when the planes were hijacked on September 11; business connections between the Bushes and the bin Ladin family, and mysterious stock transactions just before September 11; and the inconsistencies in the stories from the White House about what happened that day and why.

Military Smokescreen: Who Commanded our Air Force to 'Stand Down' on 9-11?
03-Dec-02
September 11 Coverup

"Of all the peculiarities, unanswered questions, and things that simply don't add up about the 9-11 terrorist attacks, the one aspect that keeps nagging at me revolves around our military's incredible lack of response to the hijacking of four airliners. Anyone who investigates this matter will soon find that the United States Air Force and the FAA both have established procedures that have been in place for at least 25 years regarding planes that veer abnormally off course. Specifically, federal law MANDATES that the Air Force must dispatch a plane to investigate why a certain craft has strayed from its predestined route. These interceptors are only allowed to shoot an airliner from the sky under orders from the President, but that doesn't negate that they are still required to investigate the situation in a timely manner...the Air Force KNEW that a jet was headed toward the Capitol, no planes were dispatched to intercept it. Who gave the orders for these planes to 'stand down.'"

Bush Not Likely to Testify in 9/11 Probe
28-Nov-02
September 11 Coverup

From the AP: "Bush does not envision testifying before an independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, even if there is some precedent for the chief executive offering high-profile testimony, the White House said Wednesday. 'I can just tell you everything I have heard from the Hill and from also in the White House, there's nothing that I've heard that (suggests) anybody is moving in that direction,' presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer said...In his daily briefing, Fleischer said presidential testimony is not 'within the precedence of any congressional commission' and challenged reporters to 'give me a precedent where you think commissions have ... questioned the president.' Answering Fleischer's challenge, a reporter mentioned the Tower Commission, which investigated the Iran-Contra affair under President Reagan. The president testified in 1987 to the panel he had appointed to probe the actions of the National Security Council staff."

Henry The Kriminal to Head 'Independent' 9/11 Investigation Commission
28-Nov-02
September 11 Coverup

Writes Bev Conover for Online Journal: "There is a sick hilarity to the idea of Henry Kissinger, who is a wanted war criminal in Chile, Argentina, and France for his role in the overthrow of Salvador Allende and his association with the terrorist network, Operation Condor, serving as head of the 'independent' commission that will investigate the 9/11 attacks. It's comparable to appointing Hannibal Lechter to preside over the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. In his Slate article, The Latest Kissinger Outrage, Christopher Hitchens, who has developed a fondness for right-wingers, lays out Kissinger's crimes and asks, 'Does the Bush administration feel proud of appointing a man who is wanted in so many places, and wanted furthermore for his association with terrorism and crimes against humanity? Or does it hope to limit the scope of the inquiry to those areas where Kissinger has clients?'"

Kissinger's Hand on the 'Grand Chessboard'
28-Nov-02
September 11 Coverup

"US-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce. As documented by Professor Michel Chossudovsky in War and Globalisation, the GUUAM (Georgia-Ukraine-Uzbekistan-Azerbaijan-Moldava) alliance formed by NATO in 1999 sits at the hub of Caspian oil and gas wealth. Central to the GUUAM is the US client-state of Azerbaijan. Its Chamber of Commerce reads like a 9/11/Iraq War who's who: Wolfowitz, Perle, Cheney, Armitage, Brezezinski, Kissinger, Schlesinger, Scowcroft, Former Secretary of State James Baker, Former Senator Lloyd Bentsen." Read more of Larry Chin's research into 'The Deep Politics of Regime Removal in Iraq: Overt Conquest, Covert Operations.'"

No Wonder He's the Right Man to Hide 'The Forbidden Truth': Kissinger has been a 'Central Figure in the Pipeline Politics of Afghanistan'
28-Nov-02
September 11 Coverup

Writes Larry Chin for Online Journal: "The elite 'players' on the world stage such as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brezezinski, and the heads of the Carlyle Group (to name just a few) have vested interests in playing all sides of the 9/11 War. Kissinger, for instance, has been a consultant for Unocal and a central figure in the 1990s pipeline politics of Afghanistan, as well as a consultant of China National Offshore Oil Company - which was involved in some of the Spratly Island clashes years ago (prior to Kissinger's hire in 2001)." And now Bush has appointed Kissinger to head the 9/11 Commission - shades of Allen Dulles' appointment to the Warren Commission.

White House Muzzles What Bush Knew; 911 Congressional Hearings Conclude 'Critical' Clues Not Acted Upon
21-Oct-02
September 11 Coverup

"The monthlong series of congressional intelligence hearings that ended this week produced a detailed and disheartening portrait of the U.S. spy community as it groped its way toward Sept. 11. It also reshaped thinking about the most basic lingering question: Could the attacks have been prevented? For months after Sept. 11, the answer, high-level government officials insisted, was no. The new answer is that preventing or disrupting them certainly seems to have been possible. "It really is impossible to say whether the attacks would have been stopped," Eleanor Hill, staff director of the joint inquiry, said in an interview Friday. "But I think we would have had a much better chance" if intelligence agencies had acted on critical clues....The inquiry was prevented by the White House, for instance, from disclosing whether key pieces of intelligence were shared with (Mr.)...Bush leading up to Sept. 11." Three thousand die, yet the administration shields the truth from us. Why?

'Tricky Dick' Cheney Blocks 911 Investigation: 'The Less the World Knows, the Better'
16-Oct-02
September 11 Coverup

Newsweek.com reports: "Dick Cheney played a behind-the-scenes role last week in derailing an agreement to create an independent commission to investigate the 9-11 attacks. Last month the White House endorsed the formation of the panel. But Thursday, hours after congressional negotiators hailed a final deal over the scope and powers of a 9-11 panel, Cheney called House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Porter Goss (R-FL)...Cheney strongly opposes the idea of any independent body's poking into the White House's conduct. He has repeatedly objected to efforts by a separate joint-intelligence-committee inquiry to obtain documents and interview key witnesses, including an FBI informant who lived with two of the 9-11 hijackers. Bush officials insist the VP's stand is based on 'principle,' not fear of embarrassments. Even some congressional critics tend to agree. 'There's just this general philosophical orientation that the less the world knows, the better,' says one GOP staffer."

Andrew Card Lies About Bush's Response to 9-11
17-Sep-02
September 11 Coverup

When Bush learned about the second attack on the World Trade Center on 9-11 at 9:05 a.m., he just sat in his chair listening to children read a story about a goat, for what seems to be an eternity. (In our minds, we can picture the desperate WTC workers agonizing over whether to jump from the top floors, while Bush obliviously sat and smiled.) The Booker School's own video was scrubbed, but Buzzflash archived several copies (http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/2002/06/12_BookerLinks.html). In the San Francisco Chronicle, Andrew Card writes that Bush's delay "was only a matter of seconds", but the video proves it was several minutes - maybe even 20. Urge the Chronicle to publish a correction (feedback@sfgate.com).

FBI Agent Robert Wright Says FBI Continues To Protect Terrorists, As It Did Before 9-11
14-Sep-02
September 11 Coverup

Whistleblowing FBI Special Agent Robert Wright says "prior to September 11th, the [FBI's International Terrorism Unit]'s incompetence and repeated failures to support criminal investigations contributed directly to the deaths of five Americans. The ITU's absolute failure to detect and identify the September 11th terrorist plot, and the radical Islamists that carried it out, is further evidence of the ITU's negligence, and places the deaths of thousands of Americans at their door. Over the last year, SA Wright has repeatedly tried to lawfully expose the FBI's incompetence and dereliction" through approved channels, but the FBI refuses to allow Wright to publish his 500-page manuscript or even give it to the Joint Intelligence Committee. We demand a subpoena so Robert Wright can testify!

Bush Continues Coverup of 9-11 Failures
14-Sep-02
September 11 Coverup

"The Bush administration is balking at a request from Congress that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld testify in public before the Congressional committee investigating the Sept. 11 attacks... The administration's resistance has frustrated lawmakers by making it difficult for the joint Senate and House committee to schedule public hearings, even as it races against a deadline to complete its work by the end of the current session of Congress... Powell says 'Our intelligence people did a heck of a job last year. We knew something was going on. We had warnings in the course of the summer. We tried to chase those warnings, and we tried to track them down. We weren't successful, but I wouldn't say that it was because our intelligence system failed.'" Then it was Bush's "intelligence" that failed!

NY Times Blames Blowback and Bureaucratic Incompetence for 9-11, While Scrubbing John O'Neill from History
08-Sep-02
September 11 Coverup

Americans spent $3 TRILLION for national security over the past decade, but Al Qaeda has repeatedly attacked us with deadly results. One year after 9-11, the NY Times offered a half-baked analysis. In summary: Washington bureaucrats failed to take Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden seriously. Of course, there was ONE bureaucrat who dedicated every waking hour to Bin Laden - the FBI's John O'Neill. Amazingly, the Times scrubs O'Neill from its history, and thus exonerates all of the bureaucrats who ignored O'Neill's many warnings. E-mail letters@nytimes.com and demand a complete accounting of the bureaucrats and top officials who let 9-11 happen.

Gee, They Didn't Do This When Starr and his Cohorts Were Running Amok -- Unprecedented FBI Probe of Senators to Find Out Who Leaked Info about Warning on Eve of 9-11
27-Aug-02
September 11 Coverup

"The FBI has intensified its probe of a classified intelligence leak, asking 17 senators to turn over phone records, appointment calendars and schedules that would reveal their possible contact with reporters...after a classified hearing in which the director of the National Security Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, spoke to lawmakers about two highly sensitive messages that hinted at an impending action that the agency intercepted on the eve of Sept. 11 but did not translate until Sept. 12...Requesting [these records] over a two-day period 'has much more of a fishing-around feel to it, trying to find out which senators are talking to the media,' said Charles Tiefer,...a former House deputy general counsel. 'That might frighten senators out of the business of telling the public [through the media] what they need to know'...Neither congressional historians nor legal experts could recall any situation in which the FBI was probing a leak of classified information in this way."

Bush and Ashcroft Move to Suppress 911 Evidence
03-Aug-02
September 11 Coverup

Walter Gilberti writes, "The Bush administration and the Department of Justice are moving to suppress evidence that could be used in discovery proceedings in several civil lawsuits resulting from the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center... The Justice Department intends to intervene to control access to all evidence and documents related to the 9/11 attacks... The Bush administration is embarking, behind the claim of 'grave national security concerns,' on an unprecedented vetting of evidence that denies the claimants their right to due process and a fair hearing of their legal claims. The purpose of the government's intervention is to block any substantive disclosures concerning the events leading up to September 11.' We demand a Blue Ribbon Commission on 911!

911 Cover-up: Congressional Investigation Faces Endless Delays
11-Jul-02
September 11 Coverup

After six months of closed-door investigations, the joint Senate-House Intelligence Committees have come up empty-handed. Amazingly, not a single top official has stepped forward to voluntarily take full responsibility for his or her failures to prevent 911. Hello! That's why these hearings should be held in public - so we, the people, can decide who is telling the truth, and who is lying or covering up. (To see our color-coded 911 Responsibility Chart, visit http://buckstopsthere.com ) Do you remember the public hearings that were scheduled for June? They are now scheduled for September - and will no doubt be re-rescheduled for 2005, after Bush has stolen a second term. We demand a Blue Ribbon Commission!

911 Cover-up: Ashcroft Will Screen (and Scrub) All Evidence in 911 Lawsuits
11-Jul-02
September 11 Coverup

Approximately 33 families of 911 victims have filed lawsuits against the Bush administration to learn the truth about the government negligence that led to 911, and to hold accountable those whose negligence led to the 911 deaths. But on June 20, Ashcroft's Justice Department told US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein that the Transportation Security Agency must review all evidence before it goes to the families, and will remove any evidence it deems "sensitive." And who is in charge of Bush's TSA? Director John McGaw led the investigations of the Oklahoma City bombing, TWA Flight 800, the Olympics bombing, and the church arson task force.

Jose Padilla Story Blows Bush Accountability Story Out of the Headlines
12-Jun-02
September 11 Coverup

John Prados writes in the American Prospect, "The single most significant aspect of the al-Muhajir [aka Jose Padilla] affair is the timing of the announcement [a month after the arrest], which coincided precisely with the moment congressional investigations into the missed warnings before September 11 began to come very close to George W. Bush himself...The dirty bomb news will now completely distract attention from the matter of the president's [sic] accountability for inaction before the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks." The DOJ has since backed off from the dirty bomb allegations. Meanwhile, Padilla, a US citizen, has been designated as an "enemy combatant" – denying him access to an attorney and many of the rights accorded US citizens. He is trapped in legal limbo outside of the US court system. Is a military tribunal a disturbing possibility?

Bush PROMOTES Michael Maltbie - the FBI Bureaucrat who Blocked the Moussaoui Warrant!
11-Jun-02
September 11 Coverup

"The FBI supervisor who allegedly hamstrung the pre-Sept. 11 Minneapolis investigation into the alleged 20th hijacker has been transferred to a position where bureau sources say he'll actually have more authority. Michael Maltbie, the FBI supervisory special agent accused of blocking field agents from obtaining a warrant to search Zacarias Moussaoui's computer, has been moved out of the counterterrorism division at bureau headquarters to the Cleveland office, where he'll work as a field supervisor, sources say. 'That's really a promotion…' Maltbie's conduct and that of his boss, David Frasca, the FBI's Radical Fundamentalists unit chief, as well as their section chief, will not be reviewed by the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility, the bureau's version of internal affairs. … By transferring Maltbie, he added, "headquarters is already starting to push down responsibility for this screw-up as low as possible - just as they do whenever things go wrong." Where is the outrage?

Bush's Dept. of POLITICAL Security
10-Jun-02
September 11 Coverup

Maureen Dowd writes, "Bush hopes to protect something he holds dear: himself. After weeks of scalding revelations about a cascade of leads and warnings prefiguring the 9/11 attacks that were ignored by the U.S. government, [Bush] created the Department of Political Security... Mr. Bush's surprise move was a complete 180, designed to knock F.B.I. Cassandra Coleen Rowley off front pages. He had resisted the idea of a cabinet department focusing on domestic defense for nine months. But clearly, Iago Rove saw his master's invincibility cracking and did a little whispering in W.'s ear. Why not use national security policy for scandal management? So the minimalist Texan who had sneered about the larded federal bureaucracy all through his presidential campaign stepped before the cameras to slather on a little more lard - and nervous Republicans all over town found themselves suddenly praying that bigger government could save those in need (of re-election), after all."

Bush Leaves the Losing Team on the Field while Shuffling the Substitutes on the Bench
10-Jun-02
September 11 Coverup

Which agencies let America be attacked on 911? The FBI, CIA, NSC, NSA, Pentagon, Air National Guard, FAA, INS, and State Dept. Which agencies are NOT being thrown into the "Dept. of Homeland Security"? ALL OF THE ABOVE. Instead, Bush is reshuffling all of the MINOR agencies that had NOTHING to do with 911 - like the Coast Guard, the Customs Service and the Secret Service. This reorganization is a FARCE, just intended to divert attention from Bush's 911 failures. Impeach Bush Now!

We Want David Frasca's Head on a Platter - But Just For the Appetizer
08-Jun-02
September 11 Coverup

Anthony York reports, "The search for a fall guy at the FBI continues, and FBI counterterrorism chief David Frasca has come under increased congressional and media scrutiny as probes into the Sept. 11 attacks get underway... Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., raised concerns that Frasca, head of the FBI's Radical Fundamentalist Unit, intentionally misled Senate Judiciary Committee staff in a January briefing about the case of Zacharias Moussaoui. [Coleen Rowely said the FBI supervisory special agent] involved in the Moussaoui case 'seemed to have been consistently, almost deliberately thwarting the Minneapolis FBI agents' efforts.' Without naming names, Rowley was clearly pointing toward Frasca, and other media accounts named Frasca as the agent who interfered with Rowley's efforts. Frasca made headlines on his own this week when he told a closed Judiciary Committee meeting that, although the Phoenix memo was addressed to him, he did not see the memo until October."

Karl Rove Uses the FBI to Teach Public Relations 101 : Change the Subject
05-Jun-02
September 11 Coverup

From TomPaine.com writes: "Change the subject. In the practice of public relations, that is the first rule of crisis management, and FBI Director Robert Mueller III tried to do just that in his briefing on May 29. Mueller acknowledged that FBI headquarters failed to connect important dots -- information, hunches and leads... that, if pursued, might have revealed the 9/11 plot before it unfolded. But Mueller moved quickly past the mea culpa... But talk about putting the cart before the horse -- Mueller wants the case closed before it’s opened. At least one media outlet helped broadcast Mueller's spin. When CNN... reported on the briefing, the words 'Improved FBI' were electronically pasted on the screen. The bureau’s public relations team must have cheered... Mueller’s boss, Attorney General John Ashcroft, did his part to change the subject, too, and what better way than to threaten the First Amendment?"

Never Forget Operation Northwoods!
05-Jun-02
September 11 Coverup

For those skeptics who doubt that Shrub and his slimy crew would ever have let 9/11 happen if they really knew or, even worse, were complicit in 9/11, this article on abcnews.com is required reading. It is about the nefarious, top secret plot - Operation Northwoods - to commit acts of terror on U.S. soil and blame it on Cuba in the 1960s, in order to start a war to overthrow Castro. Who hatched this horrific, devious, unscrupulous plot? Why, the U.S. military's own Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Even With 20-20 Hindsight, Bush STILL Can't Figure Out How to Prevent 911 - Impeach Bush Now!
04-Jun-02
September 11 Coverup

Everyone knows that Bush was too stupid to connect the dots in real time to protect America against 19 men with boxcutters who raised suspicions from coast to coast. But even NOW, Bush STILL can't figure out how simple it was to prevent 911! "I see no evidence today that said this country could have prevented the attacks," Bush said. Hey George, count these out on your fingers: (1) canvassing flight schools for suspicious students present and past, (2) conducting a nation-wide manhunt for the two known terrorists who were already in the country, (3) double-checking passenger lists against terrorist suspects, (4) upgrading airport passenger screening, (5) hardening cockpit doors, (6) putting air marshals on more flights, (7) giving pilots stun guns (8) patrolling the skies with fighter jets. Impeach Bush Now!

Mueller Says Sept. 11 Could Not Have Been Prevented - That's a LIE!
03-Jun-02
September 11 Coverup

"FBI Director Robert Mueller, backpedaling from statements last week that more might have been done to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, said on Sunday that there was little likelihood the agency could have anticipated or prevented the strikes." But that's outrageous! Here are 8 actions that could have prevented 911: (1) canvassing flight schools for suspicious students present and past, (2) conducting a nation-wide manhunt for the two known terrorists who were already in the country, (3) double-checking passenger lists against terrorist suspects, (4) upgrading airport passenger screening, (5) hardening cockpit doors, (6) putting air marshalls on more flights, (7) giving pilots stun guns (8) patroling the skies with fighter jets. Mueller is still covering up the truth about 911 - he should be fired, and Bush should be impeached!

Chicken Little Alerts Distract Public From Bush's Failure to Protect US From Terrorism
02-Jun-02
September 11 Coverup

Stephen Winn writes: "Dick Cheney has been asking Americans to be on the lookout for 'things that are out of the ordinary or unusual.'… Now that you mention it, something odd did happen recently: You and other high-ranking administration officials began frantically clanging the terrorism alarm bells without offering any real evidence of an increased risk… someone, somewhere, someday might blow up an apartment building, for example. Meanwhile, the government's official alert level on terrorism remained unchanged. That oversight gave the game away. The recent Chicken Little routine was actually designed to distract the public from the developing scandal over the administration's failure to better protect the country against terrorism. A great deal of information is now gushing forth about the administration's mistakes. But there are three basic categories: sloth and ineptitude before the Sept. 11 attacks; deception of the public after Sept. 11; and, continued incompetence and inaction."

FBI Director J Edgar Mueller Takes the Fall for Tenet, Rummy, Condi & Bush
01-Jun-02
September 11 Coverup

David Corn writes, "From the moment the U.S. government learned terrorists [were considering hijacking planes to crash them into prominent targets, the Defense Department should have been drawing up plans to deal with this contingency]. Yet only Mueller is feeling the heat. Not George Tenet, not Donald Rumsfeld. [One sign of his 'unsettled standing' at the FBI] is the reemergence of an old Justice Department nickname for Mr. Mueller ... 'Bobby Three Sticks,' a reference to the 'III' he uses at the end of his name.' So Mueller comes clean -- sort of -- and his colleagues call him names and fret he won't make excuses for their mistakes. That is a bad omen for anyone hoping that the FBI... can pull its act together. In the meantime, the leaders of the CIA and the Pentagon probably are quite appreciative of Mueller. Having placed a bull's eye on his back, Mueller is drawing all the fire and unintentionally, providing the spies and the soldiers plenty of cover" - as in cover-UP!

The 911 Files
30-May-02
September 11 Coverup

Stirling Newberry writes, "This breath taking shift, from the long standing line that it was ridiculous to believe that the government had any information, to evidence that specific, credible and timely information had reached the highest levels of FBI HQ has taken less than 10 days. As with all fast moving stories, the place to start is with the facts. The facts that show that there had been specific, credible and timely warnings in the possession of US law enforcement."

Elaine Shannon: New Spokeswoman for the Ashcroft Justice Dept and Mueller's FBI?
30-May-02
September 11 Coverup

Elaine Shannon is a WRITER, right? She's not an FBI expert, not a lawyer with the Justice Department, not a part of the Karl Rove PR staff. Yet suddenly, she is the Bush gang's chief spinmeister for Sept. 11 damage control. Time-Warner-AOL has her story on the Phoenix memo on Time's cover. She is also making the talk circuits, including "Washington Journal"on C-Spin, talking up her obvious buddy "Bob" Mueller, trying to pin the blame for 9/11 on the Clinton administration's FBI! Even Republicans recognized an "operative" when they hear one: One Republican caller complained that Shannon was C-Spin's FBI "expert": "There should be someone there who is unbiased, not someone who obviously has an intimacy toward Bob Mueller." Check out this apologia on Ashcroft!

Chair of GOP 'Intelligence' Committee Trashes FBI's Competence to Cover-up Bush's Failure to Protect America
27-May-02
September 11 Coverup

How low can you go? No doubt in the coming days we're gonna find out, as the GOP drones defensively circle the Bush adminstration wasp's nest and start frantically stinging! But here's a first sample of their stings. Rep. Porter Goss (R-FL), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, tells FAUX news (why does that choice of outlets not surprise anyone?) that the missed warnings were all just FBI "inexperience" in domestic terrorism. Goss thinks the FBI is currently incapable of doing the intelligence work needed to fight domestic terrorism. "I think they've got to go through a big learning curve, a lot of readjustment," Goss said. In the same interview Goss added: "We're going to hear a lot more about that in the days ahead." Yeah, Porter, we sure will. Just like we're gonna hear a lot less about Bush & Co's incompetence, too, as you Repugs get out your big ole brooms and start sweepin'!

From 'Lone Gunman' to 'Lone Warning' - Bush's Excuse for His 911 Failure is Pure BUSHIT!
27-May-02
September 11 Coverup

JFK assassination was covered up by the "Lone Gunman" theory. In the NY Times (http://nytimes.com/2002/05/27/national/27THRE.html), we can now see the Bush coverup is the "Lone Warning": On 8-6-01, a "low-level" CIA "briefer told Mr. Bush that Osama bin Laden's followers in Al Qaeda might hijack commercial jets in the US - a dated fragment of information based on a single 1999 British intelligence report." But there were NUMEROUS warnings, starting with the 1995 discovery of Al Qaeda's "Project Bojinka." "It provided for 11 planes to be exploded [over the Pacific] simultaneously by bombs placed on board, but also in an alternative form for several planes flying to the US to be hijacked and flown into civilian targets" - including the World Trade Center. More details of this plot came out during the 1997 trial of Ramzi Yousef. There were many more warnings in 2001 from foreign intelligence and the NSA's Echelon system. The "Lone Warning" theory is BUSHIT - and we won't BUY IT!

Democrats.com Expose' about Pentagon Airplane Crash Exercise Makes the Papers - in England
24-May-02
September 11 Coverup

The Mirror of London reports, "Military chiefs were so convinced terrorists could fly a plane into the Pentagon that they planned for an attack. Almost 11 months before the September 11 suicide mission killed 189 people at America's defence headquarters, they carried out a detailed emergency exercise. US authorities have consistently claimed they had no idea al-Qaeda was thinking of crashing planes into buildings. President [sic] Bush insists no one ever had considered such a devastating attack. But a report reveals that between October 24 and 26 2000, military planners held an exercise to prepare for 'incidents including a passenger plane crashing into the Pentagon.'" So far, Democrats.com is the only US publication to report this expose. When will the US media expose this Bush lie - and all of the others???

FBI Warned the CIA Twice About Moussaoui
24-May-02
September 11 Coverup

It has been widely reported that FBI Agents in Minnesota attempted to contact the CIA after FBI headquarters blocked their efforts to investigate suspected 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui. What has not been widely mentioned, is the fact that Minnesota agents were indeed successful in tipping off the CIA pre-911! In mid-August, the FBI conveyed to the CIA their concerns that Moussaoui might be a terrorist, and the CIA checked its own files but found nothing on him. The CIA also made a routine request from foreign governments that yielded intelligence from France that Moussaoui was a known Islamic extremist. The second contact came in late August when FBI agents in Minnesota told CIA officers they were seeking a warrant on Moussaoui. Are we supposed to believe that neither agency warned the Bush administration? Impeach Bush NOW!

The Saudis Sign a $3.8 Million PR Contract to Influence You!
23-May-02
September 11 Coverup

"The Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia has paid Qorvis Communications $3.8 million since it signed a one-year $200,000 a-month contract on Nov. 14 with the 15 percent Patton Boggs-owned PA shop. The bulk of those outlays ($2.9 million) were for advertising services to position the Kingdom as a trusted ally of the U.S. and a partner in President [sic] Bush's 'war on terror.' QC, in turn, paid its advertising contractor Sandler-Innocenzi $2.5 million for work on the ads." So is it really to depict Saudi Arabia as a trusted ally, or to conceal the fact that 16 of the 911 suicide hijackers were Saudi Arabian? When will we learn the TRUTH about Saudi support for Al Qaeda terror?

Minneapolis FBI Agents Refuse to Participate in Mueller's Coverup
23-May-02
September 11 Coverup

FBI Director Robert Mueller was glued to the side of Phoenix FBI agent Kenneth Williams when he testified before Congress, so it was no surprise that Williams did not criticize his boss. But out in Minneapolis, the FBI agents who were denied a special warrant to search Zacarias Moussaoui's computer are not so pliant. The general counsel, Coleen Rowley, just sent a letter to Mueller saying "that evidence gathered in the Moussaoui case, combined with a July 10 FBI warning about possible terrorists taking flight training in Arizona, should have prompted stronger suspicions at FBI headquarters that an attack was being planned... 'There was a great deal of frustration expressed on the part of the Minneapolis office toward what they viewed as a less than aggressive attitude from headquarters,' said one official familiar with the letter. 'The bottom line is that headquarters was the problem.'" No wonder Bush wants a coverup, not an investigation!

The Training-Wheel President
23-May-02
September 11 Coverup

Robert Parry writes, "Major national news outlets are continuing to coddle George W Bush even as new disclosures show that Bush and his senior advisers failed to respond [to last years warnings. CNN, the NYT, and the WP implied that Democrats were trying to make political hay by blaming Bush. For papers that hammered Bill Clinton for years it seems strange for them to shelter Bush for his failure to prevent the biggest single-day loss of civilian life on U.S. soil, ever.] Bush has rarely been treated like a national leader who should be held to account for mistakes and misdeeds. It's as if major news outlets are set on treating Bush like a toddler wobbling off on a two-wheel bike kept aright by training wheels, with an adult hand at his back and only upbeat words of encouragement in his ears. [The press also ignores how Clinton] succeeded twice in thwarting planned terrorist attacks by bin Laden operatives on U.S. soil, while the Bush administration failed."

Ashcroft Knew - His Sweeping Anti-Terror Measures Are a Fig Leaf to Cover His Naked Incompetence
23-May-02
September 11 Coverup

Bruce Shapiro writes in Salon, "Why won't the questions go away? Why does the Watergate question -- 'What did the president know and when did he know it' -- resonate with such persistence?... Who knew? Ashcroft knew. Each time the attorney general went to Congress, insisting that only broader domestic spying and detention laws could make the country safer, he knew the truth: that in the weeks before Sept. 11, the White House and FBI, already well-equipped with intelligence and investigative tools, dropped the ball. But for months after the attacks Ashcroft helped cover up the government's embarrassing lapses while aggressively pursuing a dubious domestic security agenda which courts are only now beginning to question. If the performance of Ashcroft's agencies before Sept. 11 has shaken public confidence in our national security apparatus, the attorney general's actions since then have done more to damage the rule of law than to protect us from further terrorism."

Why the Warnings Fell on Deaf Ears: For the Bush Administration, the Cold War Never Ended
22-May-02
September 11 Coverup

Jason Vest writes "What did the president [sic] know and when did he know it? [This question should not] be put exclusively to President [sic] Bush: In most countries, the directors of the internal and external security services would have resigned by now. But... equally important questions go unanswered. Such as, if the Bush White House was warned, why didn't those warnings resonate? [The most convincing answer] is that the Bush administration was still fighting the Cold War. Hence its unhealthy obsession with that weapons relic known as the Star Wars program, and with re-creating a bipolar world in which China would take over enemy duty for the Soviet Union, while Cuba remained a vital threat. Going up against a new evil empire and its satellites, or a regional hegemon, is familiar stuff; asymmetric war against a decentralized enemy with a complex geo-theological worldview isn't."

The Press Doesn't Buy the White House Scare Offensive
22-May-02
September 11 Coverup

Eric Boehlert writes in Salon, "While the White House clearly hoped that last week's report about Bush's botched pre-9/11 briefing was a nonstarter, with new revelations coming out daily it's obvious the story has [real legs.] All the more reason for the White House to try to change the topic. The last time we saw this kind of orchestrated scare campaign was in late January... Now, with its back against the wall, the White House is trying to play the same card. [This time, the press is not] taking we're-at-war dictation from the White House. There's a new level of skepticism about this latest round of official alarms... What's so strange about the White House's strategy is that... the Bush administration is practically advertising its incompetence in the war on terrorism... Is FBI chief Mueller really suggesting that the bureau... is powerless to stop a small group of foreign radicals from launching attacks on American soil?"

There's a 'Stench of Sopranos' Coming from the White House
22-May-02
September 11 Coverup

Last week, Bush viciously attacked Democrats for asking questions about 911, saying there was a "whiff of politics" in the air. But ABC News reveals that the politics is all coming from the White House, with a heavy dose of raw intimidation. "At least one White House official handed out the same blind quotes to several news organizations, including ours, clearly intended to send a Tony Soprano message: Screw with us and we will screw with you. Or, as Sean Connery told Kevin Costner in 'The Untouchables:' 'He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue.'" How DARE Karl Rove turn legitimate questions about 911 into an episode of the Sopranos? WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE???

Bush's Drones Prepare to Sacrifice All to Protect the 'Queen (er...'king') Bee'
21-May-02
September 11 Coverup

The GOP is very similar in its behavior to mass colony insects like bees, ants or wasps. These insects sacrifice all self identity to support a few rulers. When the ruler is threatened, they come out stinging and will commit suicide to protect their queens - queens that have become many times bigger than the other insects through the endless labors and blind loyalty of their drones. So how many drones in the Bush administration will lie to protect their "king bee," thus committing political suicide? We don't believe for a minute that ONLY Condi Rice, Mueller, Ashcroft or anyone else were aware of key 9/11 info. But we do believe they will, in true drone style, sacrifice their integrity and careers to protect the real culprit: G.W. Bush.

'No Warnings' - Bush's Unforgiveable Lie
21-May-02
September 11 Coverup

Marie Cocco writes in Newsday, "In all the verbiage that has rained down since word leaked that President [sic] Bush was warned that Osama bin Laden's crew might hijack a plane and strike at the United States, two words count: 'No warnings.' That is what White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sept. 11. He said it as the flames from the World Trade Center and the Pentagon lit the sky and the office workers and firefighters and deli-counter men were buried beneath the molten steel. It was a lie... Since word leaked about the infamous memo Bush received on Aug. 6, the White House has spun another web of lies... Now there is an unnerving shadow that will follow Bush through his presidency... Bush lied to us, and covered up." Impeach Bush NOW!

Bush Incompetence Hides Behind a Veil of Executive Privilege
21-May-02
September 11 Coverup

Robert Scheer writes, "Until Sept. 11, the Bush administration was simply too distracted and/or incompetent to maintain the American pressure on Osama bin Laden begun in 1998 under President Clinton. [Sandy Berger was totally preoccupied with the prospect of domestic terror attack. He warned Condi Rice]: 'You will be spending more time on this issue than on any other.' Problem was, she didn't. [She wasn't alone. John Ashcroft also downshifted anti-terrorism efforts, and] Rumsfeld blocked an attempt to move $800 million from his pet missile defense program into counter-terrorism... We already know enough... to raise strong suspicions that executive privilege is now being invoked to conceal enormous incompetence on the part of the [Bushies. But] we as a nation have long believed that it is the truth--full, complex and unsanitized--that shall make us free. We should continue to act accordingly."

Apartment Complex 'Terrorist Attack' Warning Is Suspiciously Similar to Russian Blasts That Were Blamed on Chechens
20-May-02
September 11 Coverup

In 1999, 300 Russian civilians were killed in a devastating wave of apartment complex bomb blasts. The attacks were immediately pinned on Chechnyan terrorists and the Russian military received the green light to start bombing Chechnya the NEXT DAY, while Putin cracked down on civil liberties. Some Russians suspect that the FSB (formerly the KGB), not terrorists was responsible for the blast - possibly on Putin's orders. As Putin is one of Bush's new "best friends," could it be that a handy little tip was passed on? The timing of this new "this time it's REALLY serious" threat is far too serendipitous to believe - coming just as he faces the nation's ire over 9/11.

To Learn the Truth About 911, Widow Turns Down $1.85 Million 'Bribe'
19-May-02
September 11 Coverup

The Boston Globe reports, "After her husband's body 'rained down over New York City' on Sept. 11, as Ellen Mariani puts it, she didn't want to forget what happened. She placed a back-lit photograph of the World Trade Center Towers at her breakfast table in their now-empty house in downtown Derry, and settled down to the pressing business of finding answers: Why were terrorists able to board United Air Lines Flight 175 at Logan Airport? Had the government ignored years of security warnings? Could better airline regulation have saved Neil Mariani's life? That's why, resolved as she was to face the reasons for Sept. 11 head-on, the government's offer to pay her $1.85 million in victims' compensation seemed like a bribe for her silence. 'I want to know what happened that day,' Ellen Mariani says, seated at her kitchen table, wearing a pin with her husband's photo and clutching the wrongful-death lawsuit she filed against United Air Lines." Mariani - and all 911 victims - deserve the truth!

Weekly Standard Calls for an Investigation - To Be Delivered After The Election!
19-May-02
September 11 Coverup

Weekly Standard, the rightwing rag, says "Bush [should] produce a public report in six months [after the election!] The administration is now in danger of looking as if it has engaged in a cover-up. [It has!] But the cat is out of the bag. [Meeow!] The country needs to be assured... [The wingnuts are scared to death that a] congressional committee will do the trick... if someone did make a mistake, shouldn't that someone be held accountable, just a little? [dick & dubya -- slap each other's wrists]. Isn't anyone troubled by the fact that... the incompetent people are still at their vitally important posts? Isn't President [sic] Bush troubled? [Who, Resident Alfred E. Newman?] We understand the administration's reluctance to go through this wrenching process. [Because they're guilty?] We understand, too, why the president's supporters are reluctant to demand an investigation. [We're not finished robbing the public blind!] Dick Cheney came out swinging... But he's wrong." [No s**t!]

Mueller Tries to Cover Up the Phoenix Memo, But the Senate is Adamant
19-May-02
September 11 Coverup

Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) called upon FBI director Robert Mueller on Saturday and urged him to turn over the "Phoenix memo." The FBI memo, written in July of 2001, warned that Osama bin Laden's foot soldiers were possibly training in American flight schools. According to Time.com, Mueller flatly refused to turn over the memo in his conversation with Specter and harsh words were exchanged. Senator Specter has contacted Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and the two men have agreed to summon Mueller and the memo to Capitol Hill this week. A Senate subpoena will be issued if Mueller refuses to comply. If the White House tries to fight the move, says a G.O.P. source, "as many as 20 Republican senators" will vote to enforce the subpoena.

Mike Ruppert's Appearance On Fox News Gets Cancelled At Last Minute, Thanks to 'Wag the Dog' Terror Alert
18-May-02
September 11 Coverup

On Saturday afternoon, Mike Ruppert writes: "I have just been advised by FOX News Producer Jack De Marco that my scheduled live appearance on FOX News with Geraldo Rivera has been cancelled. The reason given was that the NY Times is just now breaking news about newly intercepted Al Qaeda communications which indicate that another major attack is imminent. Wag the dog? This cannot be hidden for long. The fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian intelligence warned the Bush Administration last summer that 25 suicide hijackers were going to hijack commercial aircraft and attack major U.S. targets gives the complete lie to statements by Ari Fleischer, Condoleezza Rice and the President himself... This administration is backed into corners wherever it turns and – given what it has already permitted – we can have no doubts that it will willingly and easily let more Americans be killed to remain in power." During the show, the craven Geraldo reliably defended Bush.

Is The Latest Terror Warning Part of a Bush Cover-up to Block a Full Investigation of 911?
18-May-02
September 11 Coverup

Just as the Bush administration was caught telling numerous lies about the warnings it received about 911 - and just as pressure for an investigation of 911 was reaching the boiling point - anonymous (!) Bush administration officials announced a NEW set of vague but ominous warnings. Gee, how CONVENIENT for Bush! This announcement was perfectly timed to: 1) take the focus of the media OFF Bush's failure to heed numerous 911 warnings, 2) dominate the Sunday talk shows, and 3) intimidate the Senate in order to block a vote for a Blue Ribbon Commission. We demand public disclosure of the evidence behind the latest warnings!

Bush is Still Running From 911 - It's Time to Come Clean
17-May-02
September 11 Coverup

Joan Walsh writes in Salon, "It's important for Bush opponents to put the good of the country ahead of political posturing... Yet posturing is exactly what we've been getting from the White House and its conservative defenders... Rumsfeld told his friend Rush Limbaugh that 'through the spring and summer there was a great deal of threat reporting indicating a variety of different things all over the world, but without any specificity as to what might happen.' What is Rummy saying here: That al-Qaida didn't send dates, times and photos? In fact, evidence is mounting that the government had plenty of specificity about al-Qaida threats... most chilling, we learned [that] the government's top counterterrorism official [gathered high-level leaders] at a meeting July 5 and told them flatly: "Something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it's going to happen soon." All counterterrorism agencies were told to cancel vacations and nonessential travel."

White House Cover-up Fails - Americans Want the Truth!
17-May-02
September 11 Coverup

Anthony York writes in Salon, "The White House shifted desperately into firefighting mode Thursday, after the administration admitted on Wednesday evening that it had received a warning in August that al-Qaida might try to hijack American airliners... White House efforts at spin control raised more questions than they answered, and congressional Republicans joined Democrats in challenging President [sic] Bush to make public other pre-9/11 intelligence his administration had received. [It was a bad day for Ari Fleischer, who recited] the official White House talking points in a noon press conference. But they would not hold up well to the day's scrutiny. Fleischer's first troublesome assertion was his bizarre defense, repeated later [by Condi Rice, that nobody] could have possibly guessed that a 'traditional hijacking' might lead to what ultimately happened on Sept. 11." A Bad Day for the Bushies? What about the 3000 Americans who died on 9/11 -- they had a REALLY bad day!

Hey George: We Know What You Did Last Summer!
17-May-02
September 11 Coverup

Christopher Newtown from AP writes, "The dispute has primarily become focused on two documents - a classified CIA analysis given to Bush on Aug. 6 and a memo written even earlier in the Phoenix FBI office that warned headquarters that many Middle Eastern men were training at least one U.S. flight school." King George was on vacation for the whole month of August. He REQUESTED the briefing on a possible terrorist attack/hijacking on August 6, which included details of a possible hijacking. Did his month long vacation prevent him from doing anything, was he hiding, or was this a one month planning period as he KNEW something was going to happen? Hey George, now we know why you want to prevent an investigation of events leading up to 9/11.

Dan Rather Says Fear of 'Necklacing' Keeps the Media from Asking Tough Questions about 911
17-May-02
September 11 Coverup

Dan Rather told BBC's Newsnight that "patriotism run amok" "was in danger of trampling the freedom of American journalists to ask tough questions. And he admitted that he had shrunk from taking on the Bush administration over the war on terrorism... [Rather] graphically described the pressures to conform that built up after the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon... 'In some ways the fear is that you will be necklaced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck,' he said. 'Now it is that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions'... He said his view of the patriotism differed from that of the administration. 'It's unpatriotic not to stand up, look them in the eye, and ask the questions they don't want to hear - they being those who have the responsibility, the ultimate responsibility - of sending our sons and daughters, our husbands, wives, our blood, to face death.'" Then START asking questions, Dan!

What Did the Bushies Lie About, and When Did they Lie About It?
16-May-02
September 11 Coverup

Michelle Goldberg writes in Salon, "Now that it's been revealed that the CIA warned President [sic] Bush last August about an Osama bin Laden hijacking plot, the world is asking exactly what Bush knew and when he knew about it. It's also worth looking at what White House officials lied about and when they lied about it -- or at least when and how they wildly spun the truth over the last eight months. Clearly, spokesman Ari Fleischer was not telling the whole truth when he said the White House had 'no warning' of the Sept. 11 plot [although Bush may have kept him in the dark]. But the spinning and prevaricating have not been limited to Bush minions. The president [sic] himself has denied foreknowledge of the Sept. 11 attack... What is clear is that the administration tried to use its alleged ignorance about Sept. 11 as a pretext to unfetter the intelligence agencies -- as well as to pin blame for the attack on those agencies, especially the CIA."

Joe Conason Dissects the 911 Cover-up
16-May-02
September 11 Coverup

Joe Conason writes in Salon, "Incompetence, rather than conspiracy, remains the most plausible explanation for the Bush administration's failure to prevent the terrorist atrocities of Sept. 11, 2001. But 'conspiracy' is beginning to look like a plausible description of the administration's effort to conceal its tragic errors. For the first time in eight months, angry citizens are asking why they have suddenly learned what George W. Bush knew [since before the attacks]. Evidently Bush and his associates wanted to ensure that nobody else connected the dots, because they point directly to the White House... Bush should stop hiding behind [his advisors]; he should step forward and answer questions from the press about this crucial matter... And maybe the nation's conservatives should forget about blaming Bill Clinton for a while."

The bin Laden Warning: Why Did Bush Keep It a Secret?
16-May-02
September 11 Coverup

David Corn writes, "'By the way, we, uh, forgot to mention, that in August of 2001, while the President was taking a long vacation at his ranch in Crawford, the CIA told him that, uh, Osama bin Laden might be planning to hijack an airliner as part of some, who-knows-what terrorist action against the United States.' That is, in essence, how the Bush White House confirmed the CBS News report that broke this story Wednesday night... Before conspiracy theorists run away with this latest revelation, it is important to note its true significance. First, the news raises an obvious question, is there anything else the White House is not telling us? Bush and his lieutenants kept word of the CIA briefing secret for eight months. Why did they not disclose this earlier?" Just what ARE you hiding, Mr Bush?

Right Light Green Light 1-2-3. Another Warning to Distract Americans
19-Apr-02
September 11 Coverup

Have you noticed the last few days the news stories have gone from serious issues (Venezuela's failed coup with US help, Israel capturing several people involved in setting up suicide attacks, the killing of the 4 Canadian soldiers etc etc) to Robert Blake TV? (real news, NOT!!!) Now to further distract us, John Ashcroft and the FBI gave us a Yellow Warning, which is "unsubstantiated" according to the FBI. Maybe the 13 year old dutch boy called back from last week! Or maybe, it was to scare us again because too many truths about this administration's failures are coming out. Maybe the FBI should start watching traffic lights to issue warnings. "Oh no it's red!!! Whew, now it's green all safe again"

 


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